Experts in Radio Broadcasting say that the entire work in Outside Broadcast is 99% preparation while the remaining 1% is for the actual broadcast. Outside Broadcast covers Sports and Ceremonial which include Remembrance Day, Children’s Day, Parades, Religious Services (inside or outside churches, mosques and worship places) Cultural as in fishing festivals, boat regattas and receptional Commentary such as welcoming visiting dignitaries and Civic affairs. It does appear, however that sports activities are the most exciting, but in Radio Nigeria we have a sports and OB unit which runs through to a Directorate in the headquarters and Sub-Directorate in the zonal headquarters. You must run both ceremonial and sports commentaries as a commentator in Radio Nigeria. Time was when you chose your area of commentating, so it was easy to identify sports commentators and ceremonial commentators. Sebastien Ofurum led us to Kwara ’85, during the National Sports Festival. There it was discovered that the seven of us in the contingent as commentators were all “football commentators”. There and then, he assigned chores and made sure he sent you to the sports where you had little or no knowledge of. I was drafted to Badminton, Boxing, Wrestling and Taekwondo, football was then reserved for all of us as a collective. We were told that your reports must include snippets of commentaries, not just interviews or reading of results. What is to be done? Well, everybody had to answer his father’s name by reenacting what we were taught in sports commentary. Apart from my little knowledge of tennis, I had no knowledge or understanding of how Badminton operates in terms of scoring or plays progression. I quickly met one of the officials who took me through the racket, shuttle cork, forehand and backhand and so on. This was the secrete, you run a clinic with the coaches and experts there.I tried a bit of commentary and wobbled through the sports (at least, for the sake of my daily bread). It was passed as a good attempt, and I was encouraged to try some other sports. At the next festival that I attended in Imo in 1988, I had become an expert in commentating on other sports and had become even more enthusiastic in the coverage of other sports rather than football, which was a turning point in my career as a commentator in Radio Nigeria. In my earlier write up, I did talk about a well-groomed class of OB commentators. Radio Nigeria was an incubator for such high-class men (and women) who were the crop of the cream of Outside Broadcasters who can rightly be described as the guardians of the cherished tradition of good practices in OB and Sports Commentaries. These include Sani Kontagora, Sir Emmanuel Omatsola who ran the commentaries in 1960 during the lowering of the British Union Jack Flag, Mr. Isola Folorunsho, the father of OB and former Director Headquarters Administration of FRCN, Mr. Bisi Lawrence, OB and Sports Manager, Mr. Lawrence Emeka, MON, one-time Zonal Director, South East, Yemi Fadipe, Funso Adeolu and later, Ernest Okonkwo, Godson Ijomanta, Sebastien Ofurum, Papa Joe Lartey (from Ghana), Walter Batowei, Kevin Ejiofor {former Acting DG}, and a host of others were the muse that inspired a great number of us, the class of 80s and 90s. Even though we didn’t meet some of the early birds on the beat such as Omatsola who retired in 1971, Bisi Lawrence, Funso Adeolu, Sani Kontagora, we were nevertheless in consonance with their exploits in OB and Sports Commentaries in Radio Nigeria and to the nation at large. Kevin Ejiofor would always tell us that these great men set a standard which we must never dip. He reminded us that “Radio commentators must be men who are not just word artistes but pain-staking and imaginative researchers, people who can use their power of description to conjure pictures in the mind of the listener”. Unlike TV, which is audio-visual, Radio is a one sense organ medium, the sense of hearing. Good Commentators are therefore those who describe from their hearts or guts and not their heads. When I was invited for an employment interview in 1981, Lawrence Emeka asked me a question even before I was allowed to sit down. He asked: Between you and your listener, who is more important? I guessed right by saying the listener. He was impressed. He quickly told me “People who are posted to OB and Sports must have a reason why they are there. People there are educated, and they have educated others……………..you must use your word creatively, you must be concise, you must be comprehensive, you must have correctness, you must be cogent, your language must be powerful enough, your delivery should be intimate oration and your language must have the correct description of things.” These are the 7Cs of Sports and Outside Broadcast. Within the time you have to talk on Live OB and Sports, no matter the shortness of time, you have to say all that is supposed to be said. As a commentator, you have an objective for your listener: you are there commenting because you want your listener to understand the event, that is, people through your broadcast can understand what they did not know before. If they only knew what they knew before, then you have no reason to set up that Outside Broadcast. It is a failure on your part and that of your organization. In the competing environment which we are, you have got to be chosen as a choice station. Why would you be chosen? Why would anyone want to listen to you and not the other station? You must ask yourself, what I am doing now, is it in the best interest of my station? Can I boldly lay claim to this program as the producer? After so many years can we say with pride that this production was by FRCN? As the commentator, you are like a town crier, the voice is yours but the words are from the elders. You must know the rules and know the importance of keeping faith with your listener. Even on television, you must know and follow the rules. You must describe it on radio, but a description is not needed on television, instead give your viewer the background. On Radio do not use words that will twist your tongue, you must use words people will easily understand. The injunction is “….direct your writing or speech to a 7 year old, that will help you to use words that are easy to understand……..direct your writing or speech to a 90 year old who is half deaf, it will help you use words that are easy to hear but you must sound intellectual enough  so that a 40 year old executive will care to listen.” You must get everybody to listen. That is the hallmark of creativity! Do not be rude on air and you must obey the law; it’s called the laws of speech. The laws of speech demand that those things you would say may be offensive or may bring you in conflict with the law. Don’t say them. In our days we were guided by the NTBB (Not to Be Broadcast). In fact, if you tell a listener what he should not be told, you are creating a wrong impression.
You should also know the cultural and environmental sensitivities if you are doing a cultural program or event or even a youth program. What is significant in one environment may not be in another. It is called Cultural Relativism in Sociology. Sir Lawrence Emeka, always bubbling in wit and knowledge despite his physical challenge (He was a well-endowed Albino), told us a story or two in this direction. He began:
                     
                   There was a priest who went to Brazil, to one of those tribes of the Amazon
                    He was preaching to them about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
                     He told them that they judged Christ wrongly, they accused him falsely,
                      Imagine the son of God was accused falsely, the people were just  
                       Looking at him and smiling.
                        He said they started to beat him, he was bleeding, the people kept
                      Smiling, they gave him a cross to carry, the people kept smiling,
                      They nailed him to the cross, pierced his rib with a spear, the people
                      burst out laughing. The priest left them, saying, all of you are Infidels!
 
When he went back to Rome, he published it as an account. Another priest who had been there before, said to him, but Father you were doing well. In that tribe if anything hurts them, they show it by Laughing.
In the present Darfur Region of Sudan, a British District Officer was posted there. When the Chief came to welcome him, he spat saliva on the face of the DO. The DO was so angry that he too spat on the face oc the Chief, the Chief laughed and danced, saying, it means we are friends. The British Officer did not know it was the custom to spit on the face of a friend. These are true life stories. You should not take cultural sensitivity nor the norm for granted.
Broadcasting is described as the sound medium for two major reasons. It is obviously the medium of sound, on the other hand it is also the medium for solid contact with the audience. The Newspaper also have words as the radio but has not got the immediacy of radio, the TV medium has more by virtue of the added visual element but still lacks the immediacy of radio. The language of radio is cogency and concrete. You must tell people in powerful words what it is and you must tell people in concrete form the size of things. While on the night of the carnival of FESTAC’77, Sir Emmanuel Omatsola described the crowd as “one that can drink the taps dry”. To Omatsola, the crowd was just too many and the most effective way to describe it was to use quantum imagery. Describethings to people by the size of things they know. For example: ….as large as a football field, as tall as an average palm tree, the man is really big, he is like two men put together. In football, you want to excite people and let them share in the game. In ceremonial commentary, you want people to appreciate and to be animated by what you are saying, to imagine or to be therein spirit with the commentator and to feel as you feel. For Sir Lawrence Emeka, it was of utmost importance that if you are going to do a ceremonial commentary, you should form the habit of reading good poetry which must have rhythm and meaning. Poems according to him help the pace of the ceremonial commentary, most especially. He also advised that as a commentator, you could compose your own poems for each occasion as done by Sir Emmanuel Omatsola used during several Armed Forces and Remembrance Day ceremonies.
The languages are different. In ceremonial, you are trying to arouse the emotions of the people, to allow them to reflect and be moved. In football you want them to get excited and spur their wild jubilation. As a summary, we must bear it in mind that an outside broadcast occasion is a TEAMWORK. Behind the scenes, there are studio managers, stringers, engineers, technicians, librarians all working to ensure that the commentator has a seamless broadcast.