{UAH} Pojim/WBK: Is Uhuru planning to buy The Standard?

http://www.nairobilawmonthly.com/index.php/art-culture/253-is-uhuru-planning-to-buy-the-standard

Is Uhuru planning to buy The Standard?

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IS President Uhuru Kenyatta's MediaMax Network plotting to acquire the Standard Group? If the answer to the question is yes, everyone should be worried at this apparent trend towards oligopolistic media ownership in Kenya.

A fledgling by any definition, MediaMax's rapacious appetite is unprecedented in the history of regional media acquisitions.  Evidently not satisfied with acquiring the People Daily, K24 TV, Kameme FM and Milele FM  just the other day, MediaMax is spoiling for more.

Now, it has trained its sights on Kenya's oldest newspaper, The Standard, the country's first private TV, KTN, the popular Radio Maisha, racy city tabloid,  the Nairobian, among other outlets owned by the Standard Group.

The prospect of one company controlling a humungous slice of the country's media should cause huge concerns among the public. It becomes even more suspicious when that company is owned by the president. There is no doubt that   he wants to use such an advantage to set political agenda or influence political outcomes.

This development certainly provokes debate over media ownership in a country where national media is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals, some of them politicians and the rest people with partisan political stands. To make matters worse, cross-media ownership is the norm, meaning that the people who own newspapers are the same that own TVs, radios and on-line publications. 

So while on paper Kenya had a diversity of media outlets (radio, TV and newspaper), in reality these are controlled by just a few. Radio is king, with between 85-90 percent of adult Kenyan's receiving news and information via this medium.

Growth of advertising in the last one decade has strengthened these few players, making them very influential politically and commercially. This is the group that coalesces under the ambiguous Media Owners Association, a business lobby that only purports to agitate for press freedom whenever their business interests are threatened 

Is it not ironical that a society as diverse socially, economically and politically as Kenya is at the mercy of media owned and controlled by an exclusive club of a few men keen to promote the political and commercial welfare of a certain elite?   

Let's see how a mere handful of people control Kenya's media. Though the Nation Media Group was founded and is partly owned by His Highness the Aga Khan, a couple of local businessmen own the bigger percentage of the public shareholding, which gives them strong boardroom, and consequently editorial muscle.

The biggest media group in Eastern Africa, Nation publishes the Nation and Taifa newspapers and the regional weekly The EastAfrican. The group also runs NTV, QTV, QFM and Easy FM radio in Kenya. It owns several media outlets in Uganda and Tanzania.

Samuel Macharia owns Royal Media Services, owners of the dominant TV station,  Citizen TV, leading Kiswahili radio station, Radio Citizen and innumerable vernacular radio stations including Inooro (Kikuyu), Ramogi (Luo), Mulembe (Luhya), Musyi (Kamba),Muuga (Meru), Chamgei (Kalenjin), Egesa (Kisii),Wimwaro(Embu) and Bahari FM (Swahili and Mijikenda). 

Macharia's strategy to target the rural populations through vernacular stations means Royal Media Services has singular capacity to influence public opinion across the country.

The Standard Group is owned by retired President Daniel Moi and associates, including his former personal secretary Joshua Kulei. The group publishes the Standard, the Nairobian and also the County Press. It owns KTN, Radio Maisha, among others.

It is this group that President Kenyatta wants to acquire as he embarks on building a media empire, with the intention of fortifying his political and commercial fortunes.

While Ghanaian Patrick Quarcoo and British William Pike are the co-founders of Radio Africa Group, local businessman, Kiprono Kittony, is actually the political force behind the enterprise.

The group owns a raft of radio stations including Kiss 100, Classic 105, Radio Jambo, X FM, East FM and Relax FM as well as TV station, Kiss Television. The Radio Africa Group also owns The Star newspaper, the third largest newspaper in Kenya.

Of course President Kenyatta has MediaMax Network, a group that owns The People Daily, a newspaper previously owned by veteran politician Kenneth Matiba. Kenyatta also owns television station K24 TV and the Kikuyu language radio station Kameme FM, both formerly owned by media entrepreneur Rose Kimotho. The group also runs Milele and vernacular Mayian and Meru FM stations

Other notable owners of media include Chris Kirubi, the owner of Capital FM, popular among the upper and middle classes of Kenyan society. A close associate of President Kenyatta, Kirubi, also runs a business magazine.

These are the few that control what over 90 percent of what Kenyans read and listen to everyday. That a tiny group of people are in a unique position to set agenda and influence the thinking of 40 million Kenyans is not only shameful, it is also potentially dangerous for democracy. Should Uhuru's acquisition of the Standard Media Group come to pass, all key national media will be concentrated in the hands of even smaller elite, with not only a class, but also a regional character. This is a terrifying prospect in country where political temperatures frequently surge to boiling point. 

It is not difficult to imagine a scenario where these dominant media players choose to suppress voices opposed to their interests and the interests of the political side they support. This could affect the diversity of information reaching the people and severely undermine the public interest. 

The official political Opposition Cord had a test of this on July 7, 2014, when their much anticipated Saba Saba rally was denied live coverage by all the TV stations. In stark contrast, President Kenyatta's "homecoming"  after his date with the ICC at the Hague in early October was not only aired live on big media, but also dominated news bulletins and newspaper headlines.  

There are other problems that come with concentrating media in a few hands. For instance, a commercially driven media is primarily loyal to sponsors such as advertisers and government rather than to the public interest. There is always the risk of big businesses influencing content based on their political standpoints.

The intention of this article is not to begrudge MediaMax. In any case, media mergers where media companies buy other companies for control of their resources in order to increase revenues and viewership is a world-wide phenomenon, subject to respective competition regulations. Successful media companies usually buy out other companies to make them more powerful, profitable, and able to reach a larger viewing or reading audience.  

However, when a media company owned by a politician embarks on a fast and furious acquisition spree, eye-brows are bound to be raised as to the purpose of that enterprise. 

With the People Daily and K24 TV having taken clear partisan editorial postures (People Daily is the only newspaper that is distributed free of charge)  there is no guessing as to what to expect should the Standard and KTN fall under the MediaMax's fold. 

Political players opposed to Kenyatta will find it difficult to push their agenda through a media owned by the president. Studies have shown that during elections, the candidate that receive the most media coverage usually wins because information disseminated through the media has a notable influence on perceptions held by audiences. 

After gobbling the Standard, what will stop the president from stuffing himself up with Royal Media, or Media Africa, or even snapping up the Nation's public shareholding? Is not time we started talking about regulating ownership of media in Kenya? 

Rich owners of media have always resisted attempts at this regulation. They resisted efforts to stop cross-media ownership, and continue to resist all efforts that touch on their business, however legitimate, while at the same time paying lip service to freedom of press.

 

When it comes to the question of ownership, media owners are always in favour of deregulation. Yet this form of deregulation only leads to concentration of ownership and reduction of media options, which is bad for the public interest.

Moses Ocen Nekyon

Democracy is two Wolves and a Lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed Lamb disputing the results.

Benjamin Franklin

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