MEDIA-EAST AFRICA: Regional TV and Radio Venture Planned

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Mar 17 1998 (IPS) - By the second half of this year, more than 80 million listeners and viewers in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania will be the target audience for the first regional venture in radio and television broadcasts.

“We will establish a network of radio and television stations in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to promote the concept of the East African Co-operation,” said Sam Shollei, the chairman of East African Television Network Limited (EATN).

He told a press conference here this week (late Monday) that the EATN will invest between 300 to 400 million Kenya Shillings (One U.S. Dollar is equivalent to 57.75 Shillings) over the next two to three years in the venture.

Africa Broadcasting Limited (ABL), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Nairobi-based Nation Group of Publishers, is the majority shareholder in EATN with more than 50 percent of the shares.

“For the Nation Group, through ABL, the marriage fulfills a long cherished ambition to diversify into electronic broadcasting to enhance its contribution to the well being not just of Kenya, but also of the rest of the East African region,” said Shollei.

The venture also, “is in line with the group’s declared plans to promote East African co-operation by establishing radio and television stations in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania,” Shollei added.

ABL chairman, Bethuel Gecaga, agreed. He said the company’s strategy is to reflect activities within East Africa as part of efforts to promote regional integration and trade.

“Our objective will be to develop the stations into truly Kenyan and regional media, relying substantially on local material. In this way, we see tremendous opportunities to promote local talent, expertise and industry,” Gecaga said.

“To the extent that programming is not originated locally, it will be sourced from reputable international networks and selected for its relevance with care being taken not to offend people’s moral sensitivities,” added Gecaga.

He said the company’s television strategy is to establish a network of six stations throughout Kenya centred on UHF stations with television transmitters located at each site.

“The company’s radio strategy is based on an FM station in Nairobi with FM relays to each of the other five locations. This will provide high quality stereo sound production. Links to the regional stations will be either satellite or terrestrial,” Gecaga said.

At present, the Nation Group managing director, Wilfred Kiboro, said the registration of radio and television stations in Uganda and Tanzania is being pursued. “We shall start with radio, then move on to television stations,” he said.

The Nation Group is a publicly listed company whose main subsidiary, Nation Newspapers Limited, publishes the daily and Sunday ‘Nations’, the regional weekly, ‘The EastAfrican’ and the ‘Taifas’.

It has assets in excess of 1.2 billion Kenya Shillings and an annual turnover of two billion Shillings. It is 16th on the Nairobi Stock Exchange, and 55 percent of its shareholding is local, distributed among about 8,000 investors. The company has been in the media industry since 1960.

Shollei said they would spend the period prior to EATN’s launch on devising strategies to compete with existing radio and television stations in Kenya.

“With the recent acquisition of the Kenya Television Network (KTN) by the East African Standard group, we feel this partnership will provide healthy competition to the existing electronic media like Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), Stellavision, Capital FM and Metro FM, as well foreign media like the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which is already broadcasting on FM 93.7, and offer greater choice of programme content,” Shollei said.

The existing radio and television stations in Kenya are owned by either private or public corporations.

Of the three private radio companies that have licences to operate, only two of them are operational: FEBA radio, a religious radio station and Capital FM, an entertainment station.

Royal Media Trust is the third company with a licence, but is yet to become operational. FEBA and Capital FM are only heard in the Nairobi area, leaving the state-owned KBC radio as the only station with a reach beyond Nairobi.

Similarly, there are only three privately owned television stations in Nairobi. They are KTN, Stellavision, the local partner for Sky Television (SKY) of England which airs international news and entertainment programmes, and Cable Television Network (CTN), which does not air local news. These three stations are only received in Nairobi.

Shollei said negotiations between the EATN and ABL have taken place over the last few months, resulting in this partnership which gives ABL a majority shareholding in EATN. ABL was set up in 1997 and registered on January 26, 1998.

EATN, a private company registered in 1996, received government authority to establish and operate television and radio licences for transmission nationwide from Nairobi.

“EATN views the partnership with ABL as of tremendous benefit to Kenyans, as it will bring the required technical, financial, managerial and editorial support and expertise to EATN,” said Shollei.

Gecaga said Kiswahili and English would be the main broadcasting languages. “Others may be considered later on,” he said.

Kiswahili, a Bantu language blended with Arabic, is spoken in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zambia, Mozambique, Somalia, Malawi and the Sudan.