John Momoh recounts how he started Channels Television 20 years ago

Channels Television’s bias for news has placed it well above other competitors in the Nigerian television industry.
The station has bagged the ‘Best Television Station of The Year’ an award endowed by the Nigerian Media Merit Award Trust – 10 times in the last fourteen years (2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012  &  2013, 2014, 2015), thereby making Channels Television “the Station of the decade”.


The company is staffed with some of the best Broadcast journalists in the country, with a staff strength of about 326, some of whom have received training in Europe, South Africa and the United Kingdom and the United States, and many also bagging numerous awards of different categories, nationally and internationally.

Channels team has produced feature programmes, which have received commendation through out the country; video footage of events and happenings in Nigeria, shot by Channels News crews have been used widely by reputable broadcast organisations such as BBC-TV, CNN, ITN and McNeil/Lehrer News hour.

The station has established powerful relationships with broadcasting authorities around the world. Its flagship, The News @10 delivers an increasing audience of 8 stations at one go. Staffed with award winning broadcasters, some of whom are 2 time NMMA award winners.

Two weeks back, John Momoh, the Chairman of Channels was the guest speaker at Prince Bisi Olatilo’s 62nd birthday reception held at Niteshift Coliseum where he spoke about the story of Channels TV at 20. It is an interesting read.

“The story of Channels Television, Africa’s most awarded Broadcast Station is an interesting one. It’s an amazing 20 year history which has seen professionalism and enterprise fused into one, to result in what is today, the most trusted, and most successful news organisation in Nigeria.
I set sail within Nigeria’s radio and television broadcasting environment some 38 years ago, to pursue a career path as a broadcast journalist. I started out as a junior and then senior reporter; news anchor; news editor; and then finally, as a key producer respectively, for Nigeria’s National Radio network of (FRCN) and the National Television Authority (NTA). Prior to that, I had a two year stint with Ogun Radio Abeokuta.


After 15 years as a young broadcast journalist I had cultivated a strong ethic, to uphold the highest ideals in balanced reporting, and the right to adequately inform the citizenry. Increasingly, however, in the same breadth of time, an unquenchable desire to achieve a purposeful and consequential professional excellence seemingly overtook me.

Along with that desire, the dream to attain a more fulfilling and worthwhile future through a pattern of work I could influence and have complete control over, became a central focus of thought for me. In a nutshell, I had reached a tipping point in my life and a place of absolute restlessness.
And so, propelled by a strong urge and passion to create an innovative professional paradigm, I resigned from the NTA without any tangible evidence of financial security.  Nonetheless, I was convinced without any doubts that an untapped “Greenfield” opportunity with specific reference to my area of speciality, was well within grasp.

With great anticipation towards achieving a fulfilling, purpose-driven life, I started a production facilities company in 1993. It was during one of the most challenging times ever, in Nigeria’s recent political history. It was at a time during, which sub-Saharan Africa’s political and economic evolution was littered with flickers of dying ambers of dire military dictatorships across the continent.

Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole had begun to recover from the brutality of the lost decade of the 80s; an experience that was met with the full force of a US-led World Bank that was insistent on adopting an austerity driven-approach towards helping many African countries out of an irrepressible bulwark of decadent poverty.
A major condition-precedent set by the World Bank then, was the mandatory deregulation of the media as a precursor to ushering in a new era of democratic governance. On reflection, it was indeed, a timely development for me.

By 1993, I had successfully applied for a license to launch a free-to-air news television station. With limited capital and a resolute determination to succeed, the commitment of my family, a loan from a local retail bank, and the eventual support of a few friends, and a committed core staff of fifteen people, we began test transmission two years later for Channels TV within the municipality of Ikeja, Lagos.

But for a dogged spirit of faith and a committed wife, the sudden rush of early setbacks which we experienced then, should have completely broken one’s resolve to continue in the pursuit of what rapidly disintegrated into an unlikely dream. Looking back, however, I am extremely glad that one’s conviction that Nigeria needed an independent, cutting edge television news service did not falter. It is that sense of purpose and intrepid commitment, which enabled my family and I to endure the wearisomeness of energy-sapping trials, uncertainty and, a stagnating period of financial insecurity.
Nonetheless, we persisted in our drive to remain solvent. The raisin d’tre for Channels was to ensure the development of a “Fourth Estate” with the aim of cultivating and upholding the highests ideals in balanced reporting and the right to be adequately informed.

So, in spite of the early pitfalls and near collapses, we had to survive. And survive we did, bootstrapping our way to financial stability, cognisant of the self-instructed fact that there was no turning back until our mission is accomplished.
At the beginning, mainstream advertisers including multinationals and their representative advertising agencies, the mainstay of any free-to-air television station, were reluctant to come to the table. A dedicated news channel was not an attractive bet and for those investors that we approached, it was too high-risk a call. For those who are familiar with the history of Nigeria, this period was during the Sanni Abacha years.

Nonetheless, from its humble origins and through sheer persistence, Channels TV has subsequently, during the course of the past twenty years, won Nine out of fourteen, of Nigeria’s Media Merit Award Trust’s coveted roll call of honour and distinction, as Nigeria’s most outstanding national broadcaster. The station was also crowned Best TV Station In Africa in 2014, by the African Achievers Award Trust.

So what makes Channels good TV. In other words, what are the organisation’s critical success factors. Put simply, as some experts have suggested, watching TV with the sound off while flipping channels; once you find yourself turning the volume up, then you’ve spotted one of the most compelling things on television. Here are 7 factors which make Channels Television Good TV?
(1.)  GOOD PROGRAMMES  (2.) PROFESSIONALISM,  (3) RELEVANCE  (4.) AUTHENTICITY  (5) INNOVATION,  (6) ORIGINALITY (7) INTEGRITY.
The combination of all these factors have made us today who and what we are :

• First African media organisation to stream its news and programs live.
• First Nigerian TV Company to interface with followers via Twitter.
• First Nigerian TV Station to complete its mobile Apps on various platforms (Android, Apple, Microsoft, Nokia Store, Blackberry).
• Channels TV App has been ranked Best App (Apple Store, Nigeria) in all categories·

*In the News and Magazines category (Android store (Nigeria), the premier App is ranked number.

• Only Nigerian TV Company whose app has been consistently selected and featured on the Windows store.
• Only App (Channels TV App) in the Nigerian Android store region which has reached the 500,000 to 1,000,000 installs mark.
• First and only Television Company in Nigeria with almost One point five million followers, fans, and subscribers on social media.
• The company achieved its best online performance yet, with the coverage of the just concluded Nigerian elections by breaking all records in online viewership in Nigeria. Channels TV has been recognized as 2013 Convergence Leader in News Media Broadcast (by the West African Know how Intelligence Unit). Rated the most RELIABLE and TRUSTED source of information in Nigeria by a Reuters and BBC Poll.

In his book, Thinking for a Change, Dr. John Maxwell says, ‘The RIGHT THOUGHT, plus the RIGHT PEOPLE, in the RIGHT ENVIRONMENT, at the RIGHT TIME, for the RIGHT REASON, always produces the RIGHT RESULT.