Private stations no threat to Radio Kano – MD

You are three years now as managing director of Radio Kano. Could you reflect on what you met when you first assumed office? I met the station with the people ready for its progress. But unfortunately, there were so many constraints that militated against their zeal to work then. There was the problem of persistent […]

You are three years now as managing director of Radio Kano. Could you reflect on what you met when you first assumed office?

I met the station with the people ready for its progress. But unfortunately, there were so many constraints that militated against their zeal to work then. There was the problem of persistent power failure; there was shortage of diesel; the station’s commercial section had the problem of generating revenue. The quality of the audio was so poor that you cannot even hear what the radio was dishing out at that time. So the staff morale was low; and even ordinary promotion of staff was not forthcoming. The courses in FRCN and other training institutions for our staff were stopped and there was no reason for that. Also, there was no attempt to send them to seminars and workshops to refresh their knowledge. So I found the staff worried as every day I received complaints from many of them about such problems.

What did you do to arrest the situation?

The first thing was to find out why the station cannot be heard clearly. We identified and tackled the problem of audio. We also had a problem with our FM station then. Our FM programs that could ordinarily reach Doguwa town, the most distant part of  Kano could not be heard in Mariri, just a stone throw from Kano city. I then discovered that we have an FM transmitter donated by Voice of America kept at our Jogana station. It is just a 25 kw FM. My engineers confirmed that it could transmit to Doguwa and parts of Kaduna, Bauchi and Katsina States. Governor Ibrahim Shekarau graciously approved that we should transfer the FM transmitter to the station’s headquarters at Gidan Bello Dandago. So everything is okay now as we can be heard everywhere. Our programmes have been improved; a lot of our customers, especially the advertising agencies, who hitherto contemplated withdrawing their services, returned to us as they are now giving us job to advertise in our FM station. This is because the quality and all other things required are now there.

How would you say this has affected listenership of the radio station?

We used to receive so many comments from different people appreciating the quality of programmes. When I first came, people would not even bother you when there was a problem in the station. But at the moment, if there is any problem in the station for two to three days, you will hear people phoning me to find out what has actually happened. Our political programme is well recieved because we give opportunities to all the political parties, not only the party in power. We encourage other parties to come and air their views contrary to the thinking of the opposition parties. We don’t however allow people that abuse and castigate people; we don’t tolerate that. When the federal government announced that all electronic media should move from analogue to digital, we advised Kano State government on the need to comply since by the year 2015 all radio stations will move from analogue to digital. Our governor approved the project with the support and assistance from members of the state assembly as well as all other people including the state ministry of information. Our digital transmitters have now been installed at Jogana. What now remains is just the commissioning ceremony which the governor will perform in due course.

What is the capacity of the transmitter?

The transmitter is 2 by 50kw. People said they received us loud and clear. There were so many people from Maiduguri in Borno State who phoned congratulating us on having a new station we opened. I said, ‘It is not a new station; it is radio Kano’. Also last week, somebody came from Sudan and said he received us from Sudan. So I will not be surprised to say that our radio station can be heard even beyond Nigeria because people from Niger receive us. Like in Lagos somebody said he receives us early in the morning; the same thing in Sokoto, Katsina.

You earlier spoke of advertisers coming to the station to bring adverts. What is the current revenue profile of the station?

We tried as much as possible to generate the revenue that will assist us in fulfilling our condition. We contribute 25 percent and state government contributes 75 percent for the payment of staff salaries. No month will pass without us paying the 25 percent. In addition, we use the money generated to buy diesel which is our greatest headache now. Most of our money, about 90 percent, goes to diesel. We have so many things to do for the staff; we have so many things to do for the people to improve some services. But we cannot because the money we generate goes to diesel. That is why we have even written to the state government to assist the radio station by taking over the purchase of diesel so that we can concentrate on other things to improve the services of the station.

How do you compete in the industry now with coming of many private radio stations?

We are not competing with anybody. This radio station was opened in the 1940s during the Second World War. Radio Kano has been here long even before any other person established his own radio station in Kano. What we are trying to do is to try and abide by the rules of the games to tell the truth about anything that happens in Kano. We don’t tell lies, we tell the truth; we don’t fabricate news. We try to maintain this standard.

What are the challenges operating under a democratic set up?

At the moment we have free hands. We don’t have any interference from government. We introduced programs that will educate people. We hear from the government to enlighten members of the public; we hear the complaints of the public to inform the government, and we do our best to introduce programs for the good of our listeners. I introduced the phone-in-program, Da Bazarku. It is a two-hour program where, for example, the governor will feature to face members of the public by answering their open questions. Our political program, Iya Ruwa was improved. There are numerous other interesting programs we introduced in the last three years.