The concept of radio is drastically changing. Gone are the days when the entire country was condemned to a single State radio that filled airtime with barren monologues and nauseating sycophancy.

Now everyone with a little money to invest is racing to secure an FM frequency. And the moment they get the station going, they apportion lots of airtime to talk shows and call-ins. But it is what is said in these "shows" that is often startling.

Let’s start with the sweet surprise from Kenya Broadcasting Corporation’s Breakfast Show last Wednesday. The two hosts here talked about the much-celebrated presidential tax waiver on women’s tampons and sanitary towels. Aren’t there procedures for such things as tax waivers? they asked. Did we need a presidential decree to get tampons tax waived? Didn’t that amount to a roadside declaration?

Those presenters stopped short of declaring on air that to have the President say this sort of thing at Charity Ngilu’s controversial Sh30 million women’s conference on Saturday last week wasn’t a brilliant idea. This, they appeared to say, is not how policy is managed today.

brilliant idea

Now if you’ve been in this country long enough, that should have been a startling thing to hear on KBC. The State-owned radio station was questioning the legality of a presidential directive. Just two years ago, such stuff was not only anathema at the State broadcaster, but a dramatic act of suicide as well.

KBC is reputed to have always employed qualified professionals at the command of equipment other broadcasters would kill for. But nobody really cared about the product of this solid combination. Many are the times news content in the 1980s is said to have changed because some parastatal chief called State House to complain that he did not hear his name among those present at a harambee.

A call would be promptly made to the newsroom and the script for the next news bulletin would change into a litany of names of who attended a harambee or a church service.

Now in the post-Kanu era, it is clear that KBC is on a roll. They’ve revolutionised their corporate image. On television, the brilliant-coloured Channel 1 logo is being described by image-savvy teenagers as "cool".

Going by the Wednesday positive criticism of President Kibaki’s declaration, we have the confirmation that Tourism and Information minister Raphael Tuju was forthright about what he told the media at the last journalism awards ceremony. "I will not call KBC to tell them what and what not to air," he said to thunderous applause from the gathered journalists at Nairobi’s Stanley Hotel last December.

When the applause died down, however, Tuju said he wished to see a more responsible practice of journalism. It is this responsibility that is appearing to be elusive for most talk shows that fill airtime at the sprouting FM stations.

There is a common denominator in the way these programmes run. Programme hosts pick a popular or controversial issue of the day and invite callers to have their say on the subject. Sometimes the result is entertaining, educative and informative.

But often the only people who rake in profits are folks at Safaricom and KenCell. When airtime is filled with callers who voice openly partisan and unsupervised absurdities, it is the phone companies who reap where they haven’t sowed.

Take, for instance, the daily morning talk show at Radio Ramogi, the Luo vernacular broadcaster. The man at the helm here clearly doesn’t have a knowledgeable supervisor. If he did, the supervisor should have been fired on his first day at the job. Otherwise, a caller from Rapogi in Migori District would not vow on air to stone Nairobi Mayor Joe Aketch for associating with single women demanding legal recognition and get away with it.

It is a reminder of places in the UK where legend has it that football fans purchase beer in giant beer glasses after a football match, gulp the alcohol and smash the glass at a distant wall in an effort to vent out bottled-up energy. Nothing similar should happen in broadcasting.

Yet, some consumers are beginning to think something similar is going on at Kiss FM’s nightly programme, the People’s Parliament.

A broadcast consumer wrote to this column last month complaining that a great idea has been ruined by this programme. "The programme runs a great risk of fomenting hatred among the people by persistently allowing narrow and parochial views on air," he wrote.

absurdities

He argued that the programme host has failed to "steer his programme to the right path of factual, intelligent and researched debate," choosing, instead, "the path of cheap, pedestrian rumour mill."

A better model, the consumer proposed, is the BBC programmes, News hour and Talking Point. These, he said, are presented by anchors who exhibit excellent understanding and prior research of the issues at hand. In both programmes, opinion is sought from experts on the issues under discussion and the anchors steer the discussions with absolute finesse. And the programmes last for just one hour, "not a ridiculous four hours!"

The point is solid: as much as we may pride ourselves in celebrating the times of freedom of expression, radio talk shows are not the place to say anything under the sun.

Seen questionable content in the press lately, write to :kodi@kodibarth.com

Copyright © 2004 . The Standard Ltd