No wonder we dont read- Too much Radio...

A Classic Case Of Kissing The Audience For Too Long

Nairobi’s radio scene does not seem to change; still raking in audience ratings after almost five years.
Caroline Mutoko still reigns as the queen of morning talk and her breakfast show with sidekick Baby-J Nyambs is still raking in audience ratings after almost five years.

According to the Steadman audience survey for the first quarter of 2007, Kiss 100 dominated overall listenership with 57% followed by Classic with 44% and Metro FM’s 41%. Easy FM, Radio Citizen, KBC Swahili service, Capital FM and Kameme also managed to make it into the overall top eight following in that order.

Radio is the most popular medium in the country, with up to 97% of people in Kenya listening everyday.

The survey was conducted among a representative sample of respondents across Kenya’s main urban centers including Nairobi, Mombasa, Meru, Nyeri, Nakuru, Kisumu, Bungoma and Eldoret.

Women listeners in Nairobi prefer Kiss FM and Classic FM, both under the tight control of media mogul Patrick Quarco. Nation Media Group’s Easy FM was third. Men in Nairobi also liked Kiss FM most but Metro FM came in second followed by Classic FM, here differing from women. Metro Fm’s popularity among men can be explained by the reggae music which it plays fulltime.

Kiss and Classic on the other hand are fairly light, easy and mellow music that appeals to all. Kiss FM again distinguishes itself by its massive teen appeal; over three quarters of teenagers between ages 15 and 17 tune in. It is also the most favored by the college going 18-24 year olds and the financially-independent 25-34 age group. The 25-34 year old yuppies comprise the largest audience in urban areas.

Nairobi’s upper class is also under Kiss FM’s spell with 66% of the audience tuning in although Capital FM makes a strong impression, coming a close second with 64%. The taste among the rich also varies - the young prefer Kiss FM while the mature lean towards Classic FM.

This bracket is highly targeted by advertisers on account of its high-disposable income. The middle class listeners in Nairobi and other urban centers prefer Kiss, Classic and Easy FM in that order. Faith-based radio stations are more popular among the older than the age groups with Hope FM coming fourth among the mature and rich and Family FM coming eighth.

Kiss and Classic literally own the morning audience (6-10am) in Nairobi, when attention is highest. Kiss also controls the afternoon and evening shows with its Afternoon Jam (1-3pm) and Drive Time (4-8pm).

TV REVIEW
KTN regained leadership in TV viewership in the first quarter of the year (prior to the massive migration of key staff in April) pipping NTV 84-81 per cent.

KBC was third with 68 per cent ahead of Citizen TV (41%), before its relaunch in May. Eldoret based Sayare TV enjoyed 36% of the total viewership in the area it covered.

Others surveyed include East Africa TV, Family TV, Metro TV (which changed in April to Channel 2) and DSTV but their collective audience is dismal countrywide.

KTN was ranked as the most-preferred station in Nairobi on a day to day basis (80%) followed by NTV (76%) and KBC 1 (60%).

Ranked according to brand loyalty though, NTV has the most loyal watchers in urban areas (39%) to KTN’s (35%) except Nairobi where KTN leads NTV 31-30%.

Both stations enjoy the similar loyalty and following between female and male viewers, with NTV’s being 30-31% while KTN scores 28-27% in urban areas.

Overall, more men watch television than women, the study shows, with evenings (7pm news) being the peak time and most people turning off between 9.30 pm and 10.44 pm.

Sayare TV and EATV scored favorably as the stations of choice for young people aged between 15-17 with EATV commanding the largest number of viewership of those aged between 18 and 24 relative to its share of the audience. DSTV was the most favored by the rich while the vast majority of the middle class preferred KTN and NTV.

PRINT MEDIA REVIEW
The Daily Nation is the most known newspaper in the country, with 100% of interviewed respondents aware of its existence and 87% having ever read it, according to the quarterly report.

By comparison, while nearly all respondents (99%) are also aware of the existence of the Standard, only 67% of people admit to ever having read it.

Fewer respondents have ever read The Kenya Times and The People Daily even though a similarly high number people are aware of their existence.

The Daily Nation’s daily readership frequency in select urban areas is the highest of the newspapers (40%) compared to Standard’s 23%, Taifa Leo’s 2% and 1% of the Times and the People.

Frequency shows the number of times a reader reads a paper daily. The latter three registered low readership habits with up to 90% of interviewees saying they’d last read the publications a long time ago.

The weeklies fared even worse with the Financial Post, Coast Express, Coast Week, the Herald and Nation Coast each having less than 10% of reader awareness and readership.

Magazines/pull-out
Buzz leads in both readership and awareness of newspaper pullouts -75% awareness and read by 31% of people surveyed over a period of four weeks. It was followed by the Saturday Magazine and Lifestyle — all inserts of the Nation newspapers.

Standard teenage magazine, Pulse, a competitor to Nation’s Buzz comes fourth to break the monopoly of Nation publications. The Standard’s magazines, Style & substance, Biz Bytes, Fever Pitch, School and Career and the Executive, some of which have since folded, trail behind.

The most read sections in newspapers are, in order, local news followed by sports, international news, finance, cross word puzzles, the editorial, jobs, magazine inserts, TV and radio program guides, the classifieds and then the obituaries.

Viewed in terms of class, The Standard, Kenya Times and the People appeal to the rich upper-class, while the majority of the middle class read the Nation.

Interestingly, few women read newspapers. In urban areas, only 26% and 32% of the newspaper readers of the Standard and the Nation are women compared to 74% and 68% men. Women are the overwhelming majority of magazine readers, among them Parents (70% women compared to 30% men.)

Almost similar figures are registered for the readership of Drum, Eve, Cosmopolitan, Buzz and Pulse.

Readership of the adolescent magazine, Insyder, is almost 50-50 by gender.
The most read magazines overall are Parents, Drum, True Love, Eve, Insyder and Readers Digest.

4 StoryMoja blog.