Jun 1, 2011

Radio Stations! Are they doing any better?

Okay!!.

So how has everyone been? Am back after some bit of silence. I took time to read all my fellow IT geeks' posts and blogs especially Albert Mucunguzi, Maureen Agena, Josh Twin, Stone Atwine, Simon Kaheru, Evelyn Namara to mention but a few. I like your posts Evelyn by the way especially the Tweets. *wink*

Straight to our topic today, Radio Stations. Are they doing any better? I woke up this morning, unusual time (3am) and for the first time in around 12months my bed room had radios station sounds escalating from there. Tuned into a radio station(name reserved), there was great music being played. The DJ really took his time to keep the Insomniacs awake but to my shock there were people calling in to say hello to there friends and loved ones and then there was this one which made me laugh my head off "Nindamusya n'omukyaara wangye owunyin' aha" literally meaning "Am also saying hello to my wife who is just next to me". For some reason I wondered, did this man call only to say hello to someone next to him? Okay! Let's call that too much Love.

Time check 6:30am, Announcements started. The anchor read, read and read lots of announcements but most of them were death announcements, performing last funeral rights, thanking people who were there for them when they lost their dear one plus others in that line. To my dismay, there was no announcement that may be announced that today is for example a market day in a certain place, traders in cereal will be at a certain collecting center so whoever has cereal could move there and sell off his or her harvest. After the announcements, they played a song by Eminem ft Lil Wayne - No Love then, an advert of Eddie Kenzo being in the area over the weekend killed my ears with a shout from the other end, "Abaaaaannntu be Mmbararaaaaaaaaaaa kye mwaasaba embaazzi kibuyag' asudde. Anti tubaletedde Eddie Kenzo ......blah blah" meaning "People of Mbrarara, your prayers have been answered. We are bringing you an Eddie Kenzo concert... "

I thought these radio stations in the rural areas are set up to target the interests of the audiences that they serve. How was my Grand mother supposed to get the lyrics of No Love? Playing rare music was not bad but my point here is, are the many radio stations in Uganda addressing the interests of the community? These radios are not only supposed to be there to broadcast Walk to Work Demos, Kayunga riots etc but also address the key issues that will make the rural person earn some income not an Eddie Kenzo concert that will make him spend even more on watching someone who is singing lyrics that we do not understand. Stamina, Super Power, My Miss .....zig gigigig gid gid.....!!!!

Access to Radio, one of the easiest ICT tool to-date has been made so cheap that even the cheapest mobile phone has radio so my thinking is that access to media tools is no longer a problem. The remaining task remains to disseminate the relevant information to the rural people to improve their livelihoods.

So, who should make sure that the relevant information is passed on to the rural people? Is it Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) or Uganda Broadcasting Council (UBC)?
That is not to be answered by me. Am just a digital native putting out what I see and where I feel there is a gap.

Uganda today has the biggest number of radio stations in Africa. More radio stations than even in South Africa but I do not see them doing the best of what they are supposed to do in improving the livelihoods of  our people.  I think they are concentrating more on accumulating revenue and remitting to URA in form of Tax the money that is not being accounted for. If they have decided to be so business minded and putting aside the emphasis on service delivery then let us see medicine delivered to the health centers or the call rates being reduced further or even the cost of kerosene at that. Tax paid should may be translated to that and not buying a 2010 model Land cruiser for my MP who gave me a packet of salt to find his way to parliament. Mis-allocation of resources is what am talking about here.


2011 years down road after Christ, the information is more than enough, Communication channels & means are so present and for the Technology, I would say  it is appropriate. The question is where are we failing?

Til next time, I will see you on the next post.

1 comments:

  1. Good choice of topic. Focussing on the line about the stations having gotten mainly business-minded, actually, that's what they are about. Gone are the days when media was run as a public service.

    Case in point is the BBC which has been closing a number of channels and laying off staff after its "public-service" approach was undermined by shortage of finances.

    Comment by Albert Mucunguzi

    ReplyDelete