An insightful look at the revolution in Kenya’s mainstream media

BY DAVID WANJALA

Kenya’s giant media entities including the Nation Media Group, the Standard group and MediaMax that runs K24, the People Daily and several FM stations in their stable have, for the better part of 2015, been restructuring.

In the Kenyan labour relations context, restructuring is a euphemism for downsizing, sacking employees. As such, the leading media houses have, for the said period, executed massive and sometimes ruthless dismissal of employees especially in the editorial department, the core function of any media house.

In effecting the restructuring, positions in the newsroom, some traditional, have been declared redundant, numerous departments collapsed besides outright sacking. While some positions like copy taking have been outlived in the digital era and therefore their being wiped out is understandable, dwindling revenue has more than anything else informed the restructuring decisions.

The Nation Media Group (NMG), which is the market leader with its print division occupying a commandeering position in the region executed a quiet and gradual restructuring programme from early last year affecting journalists across all cadres. Just in September, it declared redundant several positions in their broadcast division including NTV, QTV and Q and Nation FM stations. Correspondents and almost all reporters for Q FM for instance, were dismissed.

It is the Standard Group (SG), Kenya’s oldest media house, however, that carried out the most pronounced, massive, ruthless even, restructuring that targeted 300 journalists across its divisions including KTN, Radio Maisha and the print division, from across its bureaus countrywide. Top and long serving journalists were not spared. Mwanaisha Chidzuga for instance, sources intimate to the process reported, received her matching orders just when she was about to go on air for her Maisha na Isha show. Many, however, including renowned and award winning political analyst Oscar Obonyo, chose the voluntary retirement option in the restructuring programme.

Media Max, in November carried out a second restructuring programme in just two years and fired some of its top earners poached earlier mainly from Royal Media’s Citizen TV and KTN. It also rehired some of its former high earners that it had dismissed in the earlier restructuring, apparently on renegotiated terms.

Kenya’s media has metamorphosed over the years, withstanding tight state control of President Moi’s regime into a flourishing, profit raking industry. Beginning mid 90’s when airwaves were liberalized to open space for more broadcasting house to join the ranks of KBC, which had enjoyed monopoly for far too long and KTN which had withered the storm of government’s big brother syndrome having been the first private TV station to be allowed to broadcast in Nairobi from 1989. Nation TV, now NTV began broadcasting in 1999. At around the same period, S K Macharia’s Citizen TV was also launched.

With independence party, KANU exiting power in 2002, ushering in a new dawn of political leadership that did not mind media independence, the otherwise muzzled industry opened its floodgates to new ventures. Many more newspapers and magazines were launched; those that had closed for business reasons or for rubbing KANU the wrong way were revived. The sector has grown from near scratch over the last ten years to a multi billion shilling industry incorporating all spheres; training, advertising and media practice, along it creating lucrative jobs to the masses of Kenya’s youth.

Through early 2000 to date, the media industry has produced some of the highest earners in the economy. One needed only to land at KBC, the national broadcaster for his or her first attachment during training, prove his or her worth and earn his first contract and earn a gross of between Sh15, 000 and Sh25, 000. Not to worry. Within a year, if talented, KTN or NTV would then come pleading to sign a contract with you and within three years, S K Macharia would have known you exist. Moving to Royal Media’s Citizen TV from either KTN or NTV meant you have crossed the poverty line.

With time, Citizen TV dropped from being the ultimate in Kenya’s media ladder. There came China TV, then MediaMax’s K24.

The print was not left behind either. Journalists have shuttled for greener pasture among the Daily Nation, Standard Daily and Radio Africa Group’s the Star. Radio, with the proliferation of FM stations was, probably the most lucrative. At some point one needed only to be a good comedian to earn a lucrative contract with a radio station.

The game changer
What has changed in the last two years that everything seems to be falling apart? Why, for instance, are the highly priced TV presenters poached from rival stations being the first target whenever there’s a restructuring?

The cutthroat competition amongst mainstream media entities resulting in poaching of top newsroom talent at prohibitive costs from early 2000 to around 2013 only pointed to one thing, a thriving industry. The near sudden turn of the tide could therefore, too, point to one thing, shrinking revenue bases for the big boys.

Media, be it electronic (TV and Radio) or print, make its money from advertising. The corporate world together with the Government, which is one of the major advertiser, the political parties and Non Governmental Organisations do not advertise blindly. They follow the numbers. They are so intent on the numbers they are forever commissioning research firms to establish for them, for instance, the distribution reach, readership and its demographics for the dailies, TV and radio stations. It breaks down to individual programmes and the kind of following they attract.

The media houses are aware of this and to remain attractive to the advertisers, they have traditionally worked around the clock to attract and retain readership and audience. This they have done by, mainly breaking news and by packaging their deliverables uniquely to attract and maintain audience.

As the economy grew, so did the need by the corporate entities and government to reach the masses through advertising. Political activities, with more democratic space, grew sophisticated election after the other, roping in the media in unprecedented ways.

Fortunately or otherwise, the mainstream media remained captured by a few players, mainly the KBC, NMG, SG, RMS and MediaMax. The cake expanded but the number of beneficiaries remained constant, hence the boom that we saw from around 2003 to 2013.
A radical turbulence that would reengineer forever the way media operates, however, loomed large on the horizon. It was propelled by the rapid technological advancement. The reason why the mainstream perpetuated its dominance in the old order was because it was prohibitively expensive to set up a media house, be it radio, print or TV. So the space was left for the few big players who could venture in the deep sea.

First to poke its nose in the mainstream media’s comfort zone was the social media. It had been around for a while. It was never taken serious. It never appeared like it could move the orbit of the mainstream in the industry. And so it grew and mutated unnoticed, without resistance. By the time it staged a coup on the mainstream’s forte of breaking news, it was too late for any reversal. Aided by the increased access and affordability of the Internet, the social media through various platforms including facebook, twitter, instagram, and individual blogs and websites have executed the swiftest coup, pulling the rag off Kenya’s mainstream media in an irreversible way.

What, with Internet’s last mile channel moving from desktops and laptops into our palms courtesy of the Smartphone and tablets. The two gadgets are getting affordable every sunrise, which means more Kenyans are able to join the network of social media users on the go. The celebrated Prime Time news is no longer prime. It has lost its glamour since it no longer enjoys the revered niche of breaking news. Have you ever watched 9:00 O’clock news and everything sounds familiar yet you were not on TV all day? Senior Counsel Ahmednasir Abdullahi recently decried the phenomina, “we buy the dailies every morning out of habit, you hardly find in them anything new,” he said.

To beat this and remain relevant, newspaper editors have since changed tact especially in dealing with page one lead stories. They have dropped the ‘day one’ kind of journalism when weaving cover headlines as evidenced in the two cover pages of the Daily Nation and the Standard Daily a day after the embattled Cabinet Secretary for Devolution threw in the towel. They no longer break news, they analyse, like the Nation’s on November  22, “Why Waiguru had to go”, unlike the Standard’s “Waiguru bows out,” 24hrs after it happened. It would be interesting to compare the distribution figures for the two newspapers on this particular day.

Then came the shocker in 2014, digital migration. Like the social media explosion, it too sidestepped the mainstream media despite the fact it had been on the cards for the longest time possible. Again, the big boys reawakened to the reality of the paradigm shift the migration was going to engineer when it was too late to position themselves in the driving seat. The worst of it was when they tried to throw logs on the path of the digital migration train to stop it from leaving the station, rather than jump onto it and strategically position themselves to dictate its path.

With digital transmission, it is easy to set up, say a TV station, evident in the number of stations that have come up, offering variety since the migration was effected early this year. Kenyans have since also been exposed to numerous foreign channels, stretching variety to limits not before enjoyed in the country’s broadcast history.

The import of this is that advert revenues, with increased, aggressive beneficiaries, have shrunk. Advertisers are spoilt for choice, as tables turn on the mainstream media players. With a stagnant economy, it could not get worse. Advertisers, with the turn of events, have also afforded the rare opportunity to profile their target audience by way of age, education, socialization among other demographics and market directly to them. Popular individual blogs are now also enjoying a piece of the pie as are many TV and FM stations, foreign and local that have recently taken the plunge. The battle for the limited advert revenue is no longer one for the four or five titans in the industry.

In the meantime, the giants are struggling to style up. They are playing catch up and with the reduced advert revenue, we have not seen the last of restructuring. It will go on until the market trends reach equilibrium and no one can predict when.

In the meantime, training of journalists need too, to read the signs of time and style up. Journalism schools should desist from orienting students towards employment. They should, from the onset, inculcate innovation; how to start and run income generating websites and blogs, for instance. Or producing documentaries, drama series with local content to sell to the many TV and FM stations coming up.