By Jackson Karanja and Ghost Writer
If you listen or watch television ardently or occasionally, you are likely to notice a pattern. The majority of Kenyan platforms duplicate formats. For radio, early mornings are marked by piety, maybe by chance or design. There is gospel music and the unfurling of the chapters of religious books. The one hour between 5am to 6am is reserved for faith-based programmes featuring pastors and imams by most radio stations.
Most breakfast shows start at 6am. For radio, the breakfast show is considered a cornerstone of daily programming, often requiring the host to command audience attention and keep them engaged without prompting them to switch to an alternative radio station. This is where the real battle for numbers is often fought. This segment closes at either 9am or 10am. It is not unusual to hear radio presenters brag: ” You are listening to the biggest breakfast show in Africa,” without any supporting evidence for these claims.
In its latest public opinion survey, pollster InfoTrak ranks breakfast show hosts as the top five popular presenters. Leading was Radio Jambo’s Gidi and Ghost, followed by Classic 105’s Maina Kageni and Mwalimu King’ang’i. Radio 47’s Alex Mwakideu, Fred Arocho, and Eva Mwalili followed in that order.
If you read the State of the Media Report by the Media Council of Kenya, released in May this year, your will notice that radio is a morning medium while TV is preferred in the evenings.
Television stations keep recycling panelists and analysts. It’s like we’re stuck on replay, recycling a small circle of “analysts,” “experts,” and “commentators” while ignoring the rich tapestry of voices that make up our society.
We need to break this cycle. Editors and station managers, your role is not simply to fill the airwaves with predictable content.
Your role is to reflect society as it is, in all its dynamism and complexity, and to push conversations forward by amplifying voices that are often left unheard. There are artists capturing the pulse of society through poetry and music. There are women leading grassroots change in villages, and youth building small businesses in towns you rarely visit.
These are not just “feel good” stories for the weekend segment; they are voices that can add depth to conversations about the economy, climate change, governance, and culture. If we want audiences to trust and stay with us, we must stop underestimating them. People want fresh insights, not recycled sound bites.
They want perspectives that resonate with their lived realities, not the opinions of the same four voices we call every time a topic trends. Of course, bringing in new voices requires work. It means building new networks, mentoring emerging analysts, and giving space to young reporters who see stories from angles we miss.
It means trusting that authenticity is more powerful than a polished accent. It means being willing to be uncomfortable. But if we truly believe in the power of media to inform, educate, and empower, then this is the work we must do.
For radio presenters, using talk and call-in shows can curate regional, national, or more localised conversations and drive discourse. However, more can be achieved through radio broadcasts. This can be done by embracing different formats of radio content.
There is the mid-morning show, designed to cater to those at the workplace. Increasingly, this segment is targeting women as the primary audience and highlighting their issues. Most afternoon shows cater to youthful audiences and usher drive shows.
Most early radio evenings from 7pm will unbox the politics in talk shows, ushering in the late night tailored for adult content. The cycle repeats with news bulletins at 7am, 9am, 1pm, 4pm and 9pm complemented by news briefs every top of the hour.
The reality is that this can be redefined to usher in a more rewarding radio listening experience. This can be achieved by tapping into more immersive storytelling formats for radio. At the heart of good radio is the ability to create and paint pictures in the minds of audiences using sound. This calls for a discerning push beyond speaking on the microphone and engaging with listeners during call-in shows, some light banter, and reading on-air comments from social media feeds.
Radio is considered a blind channel; it is heavily reliant on sound and, unlike television, lacks visuals. These sounds can create mosaics of the happenings in the minds of listeners by deploying production acumen and craftsmanship.
Radio stations can explore more engaging formats outside of straight talk and music such as documentaries, radio magazine shows and radio features. Soundscapes and even radio drama allow for more creative output. News bulletins can be bolstered by using packages, vox pops and two-ways.
While content broadcast partnerships with global media houses like the BBC, DW and China Radio are welcome, more innovative packaging of radio content can better tell our narratives in our voices and the sounds around us that define our psyche.
Let us move beyond the easy and the predictable. Let us open the doors of our studios and newsrooms to the faces and voices shaping Kenya’s present and future.
