Oluwatosin Enesi
Channels Television is a multiple award winning 24-hour news and media organization which was founded in 1992 by Nigerian veteran broadcasters and business moguls: John Momoh and Sola Momoh. The Company commenced operations in Lagos, south western Nigeria and has since grown to include three other Stations in Abuja, Edo and Kano states. The Company also has bureaus in almost every state in Nigeria, including stringers and affiliates in other parts in Africa.
Operating in Nigeria’s hugely popular broadcast media market, Channels Television is the first and only thriving national TV brand, dedicated solely to the dissemination of news.
Channels TV was established with the aim of cultivating and upholding the highest ideals in reporting the news with objectivity and fairness, as well as satisfying the right of the individual to be informed. The Company was licensed in June 1993 and allocated a frequency on UHF (channel 39). It began transmission two years later under the name, “Channels Television”, and now broadcasts to a well discerning audience of over 20 million people. The Station has earned a reputation as an aggressive news outlet, which provides a balanced account of news coverage.
The establishment of Channels Television as a news Station was in response to the yearning of Nigerians for a TV Station that will among other things give an alternative medium of communication to the government and its policies, and hold public officers accountable to the people.
The story of John Momoh and Channels TV is chronicled as a chapter in a book by Mike Awoyinfa and Dimgba Igwe titled: 50 WORLD EDITORS — Conversations with Journalism Masters on Trends and Best Practices.
John Momoh (born July 1, 1957) is a Nigerian broadcast journalist and the Chairman and CEO of Channels TV, an independent and multiple award winning 24-hour news and media television channel based in Lagos.
He is widely recognized in Nigeria as a transformative industry pioneer with the 37-year-long career in news television broadcasting.
Over the past decades, he has built a commercial satellite television station with a reputable integrity in a country where the media sector is tainted by corruption.
John Momoh graduated from the University of Lagos with a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication and a master’s degree in International Law and Diplomacy. In June 2013, he received the Lagos Business School’s Distinguished Alumni Award.
John Momoh has a professional Diploma from the UK’s Thomson Foundation, an alumnus of University of Lagos, Lagos Business School, and Harvard Business School, and is Fellow of the Nigerian Guild of Editors and the Nigerian Institute of Journalism.
Prior to starting Channels Television, which he founded in 1995, John worked variously as news anchor, senior reporter and senior producer for Nigeria’s National Radio and Television Stations, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria and the Nigerian Television Authority.
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