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THE
MEDIA
Educational
Programmes in Kenyan media.
Ethical Relativity and
Journalism.
History
of Kenyan print media as a struggle of forces.
Public broadcasting in Kenya >
Traditional communication channels
and Kenyan society.
Saddam Hussein's trial as
media performance.
Radio transmission towers just
outside the city of Nairobi.
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PUBLIC SERVICE
BROADCASTING
Definition
Public service broadcasting is intended to serve the diverse needs of
the listening public. Except for the United States, it has
traditionally been the dominant form of broadcasting for much of the
world. Public broadcasting provides a counterweight to the commercial
media. Its rationale is that broadcasting, because of its reach and
assumed influence, should have public service as a central goal.
Advocates of deliberative democracy argue that public broadcasting
helps to maintain modern democracy.
Public broadcasters receive all or a substantial part of their funding
from government sources, either from the general tax revenues or from
license fees. Since public broadcasters do not rely on advertising as a
source of revenue to the same degree as commercial broadcasters, this
allows public broadcasters to air programs that are less saleable to
the mass market, such as public affairs shows, documentaries and
educational programmes. The fact that public broadcasters do not chase
ratings in the same way as commercial broadcasters often leads to the
criticism that they are unresponsive to what their viewers want.
Commercial broadcasters, on the other hand, are purely profit-oriented
enterprises. Content is geared towards attracting as much of its target
audience as possible. This, in turn, attracts advertisers who pay for
the priviledge of having their products or services advertised to the
audience. Therefore, commercial broadcasters only transmit that which
attracts the audience, hence the tendency towards sensationalism or
appeal to the baser instincts.
Additionally, public broadcasting facilitates the implementation of
cultural policy for cultural promotion. Critics argue that this
implementation of cultural policy imposes the values of the public
broadcaster on the populace. However, it can also be argued that
commercial broadcasting has a bias for certain values or cultural
forms, such as pop culture, militarism and consumerism.
In theory, public broadcasting is not beholden to political parties or
to the government of the day. But there have been cases where public
broadcasting systems have been used by dictators and totalitarian
governments to spread hatred and incite genocide.
Values of Public Service Broadcasting
- Maintenance of culture
- Competition in good programming rather than for numbers
- Nurturing of local talent
- Addresses the needs of society through behavior change
communication,
for example, HIV/Aids awareness.
- Providing information to enable wise decision making, for
instance,
civic education.
- Wholesome entertainment that does not offend morality.
Characteristics of Public Service Broadcasting
1). Universality of service: Broadcasts are available throughout the
country.
2). Universality of programming: Public broadcasters cater for all
interests and tastes.
3). Provision for minority audiences including the disadvantaged: This
would also include racial minorities.
4). Sustaining an informed electorate.
5). Cultural and educational enrichment: For instance through
production of local programmes which can be extremely expensive
compared with cheap imports from the United States, Europe and South
America. Also, the broadcast of informative feature documentaries, also
called "factual films" (Baddeley, 1970).
Does Public Service Broadcasting exist in Kenya?
The answer is
yes and no.
Yes, because the State broadcaster, the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation
(KBC) was created with public broadcasting in mind. The Act of
Parliament that created KBC mandates it to undertake public services
(KBC, 2007) notably in the field of broadcasting (where else?).
The KBC displays all the characteristics of public broadcasting. Its
service is universal, and its radio signals can be received all over
Kenya and beyond. KBC television signals can be received in the major
population centres around Nairobi, Central Province, Central Rift
Valley, Western, Nyanza and Coast Provinces. Recently, the KBC launched
a transmitting station at Lokichoggio, on the border with Sudan. In
this way, KBC is broadcasting to areas where the audience may not have
much to offer advertisers. Instead, the goal of KBC, is to provide news
and information to as much of the Kenyan people as possible.
KBC's programming is diverse, aimed at everyone. Indeed, KBC's target
audience can be said to be, "all Kenyans." In this respect, KBC has
news highlights every hour, music shows, children's programmes,
religious programmes, documentaries, sports, quiz shows, discussion
programmes, call in sessions and also programs on the various cultures
of Kenya's diverse people.
KBC has attempted to cater for ethnic and religious minorities. Apart
from broadcasting in the languages if the major ethnic groups such as
the Kikuyu, Luo, Luhya and Kamba, the KBC has public service radio
broadcasts in Rendille, Burji, Turkana, Suba, Pokot and Somali.
Apart from Christian religious programs, KBC radio and television airs
programs on Islam, a religion practiced by 30% of Kenyans.
Occasionally, KBC invites Hindu priests for its close-down prayers out
of the fact that Kenya has a Hindu Asian minority. None of the
commercial radio and television stations broadcast in minority
languages. In religious programming, most of the commercial radio and
television stations broadcast Christian programs due to its huge
audience consisting of the 70% of Kenyans who practice Christianity.
Through the sponsorship of the government, the Electoral Commission of
Kenya and various non-governmental organizations, the KBC has broadcast
civic awareness programs. The broadcast of such programs tends to
increase in intensity during General Elections held in Kenya every five
years. The audience, which consists of voters, is advised on making
right choices free from the influence of bribery or ethnic chauvinism.
Discussion programs on radio and television are forums for political
leaders to expound on their visions of leadership to the wider public.
The nature of public broadcasting is such that some level of
governmental involvement is inevitable. The fact that public
broadcasters are funded through tax collections means that they have to
look upon governments for finance. Thus governments attempt to use
financial leverage to manipulate the editorial slant and content of
public broadcasters. This is more so the case in countries where
democratic institutions that emphasize on the separation of powers are
yet to fully evolve.
In Kenya, as in other Third World countries, the level of governmental
control over the public broadcaster is much higher than is the case in
the European and North American democracies. In those countries, any
attempt at political interference would cause a major scandal likely to
lead to collapse of government. Institutions of government are
respected and largely left to operate independently. Hence, the British
government does not interfere with the day to day operations of the
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and neither does the United
States government interfere with the Voice of America. These
governments, however, do establish policy guidelines so that the public
broadcaster can serve the interests of the State. For instance, despite
the independence enjoyed by the Voice of America, an interview with
Osama bin Laden is highly unlikely for the reason that it would
undermine the objectives of the American government.
Political leaders in Kenya regularly place telephone calls to the
management of the public broadcaster in order to influence editorial
coverage. Because the independence of state organs has not fully been
developed, individuals perceived as being close to power are likely to
influence the performance of government departments. Hence, such
individuals tend to influence what the public broadcaster puts on air.
Unlike Europe and North America, there is virtually no political
penalty against such individuals and hence political interference in
state media persists with the consequence that coverage of events tends
to be one-sided, biased and partisan. The public gets alienated and
audience ratings plunge.
KBC, like the other radio and television stations in Kenya, has been
accused of offering foreign programming in the form of soap operas,
comedies, music videos and films. Imports of foreign programming are an
attractive option to producing own content due to high production
costs. Nevertheless, KBC has a higher proportion of local programming
compared to commercial radio and television stations. Vitimbi and Vioja
Mahakamani are comedies that have been on air for over 20 years. In
Search of an Answer is a discussion program on current social issues.
Reggae Time is a popular radio music show featuring both local and
international reggae music. These are just a sample of local
programming on the KBC that has further helped in the development of
contemporary Kenyan culture (those who say Kenya has no culture should
watch KBC).
KBC has programs on rural development with reports from different parts
of the country. On these programs, one can watch livestock development
in Kajiado, irrigation in Pokot and maize farming in Nyanza province. A
recent feature documentary talked about the application of research
findings on insect physiology on pest control in Western province.
These programs may not have mass appeal but definitely are useful to
those interested in agriculture.
Since the 1990s, the KBC has not received the kind of state funding it
used to, or is supposed to, receive. At the urging of international
financing bodies, the government of Kenya had to commercialize the
operations of KBC. That meant that Kenya's only public broadcaster had
to compete for advertising revenue with commercial radio and television
stations. Initially, that was not a major challenge as KBC had a
monopoly in national broadcasting. Since the year 2000, numerous radio
and television stations have been licensed to broadcast nationally.
There are vernacular FM stations targeting major ethnic groups and
which have undoubtedly eaten into KBC's rural audience.
Schools broadcasts were discontinued in the early 1990s out of the
inability of the Kenya Institute of Education to pay commercial rates
for air time. KBC television turned into a relay channel for foreign
news stations such as CNN, CCTV and NipponTV. Music and religious
programs got more airtime due to their attractiveness to the general
public. Call in sessions in radio were enhanced as were Salaams
programs sometimes running into several hours of airtime. This was
meant to attract advertising, which it did. Until the early years of
the new millenium, KBC got the highest advertising revenue of all radio
and television stations in existence at the time. In spite of
commercialization, KBC continued its vernacular radio broadcasts,
production of local comedy and discussion programs. However, these were
restricted to studio locations in order to cut costs.
With the coming into power of the NARC government of President Mwai
Kibaki in 2003, there have been efforts to restore some of the public
service functions of KBC in a commercially sustainable manner.
Broadcasts to schools on weekdays through the KBC radio have resumed.
The government has repeatedly reminded KBC management of the station's
role in broadcasting government policy initiatives. The extent to which
the station should fulfil this role, however, has not been defined and
has caused conflict in recent times.
There have been attempts to level the playing field in favor of the
KBC. Commercial broadcasters import all their programs in order to cut
costs, for the reason that importing programs is cheaper than producing
them locally. The government proposes to impose a certain minimum
percentage of airtime that all broadcasters must devote to airtime.
Such a move has been lauded as likely to promote and preserve Kenyan
culture and further increase the pool of local entertainment talent.
The flip side to such a move would be Kenyans missing out on
entertainment trends evolving elsewhere. As is commonly observed, the
world is becoming a global village and hence broadcast content should
be shared all over the world.
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