[ad_1]
Nineteenth century French leader Napoleon Bonaparte once said, never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. In a widely unexpected move that sent ripples across the media fraternity, the government appeared to flex its muscles and go after one of its biggest critics. Although it will be argued that the move was an entirely professional one without any political intentions, the optics of the whole affair can’t be ignored. Besides that, the move bore the hallmarks of Karanja Kibicho, especially considering that the casualty hails from the same county with him.
When Uhuru’s government shut down Purity Ngirici’s TV station this past week, he should have paused and reflected on Napoleon’s words.
In shutting down Mt. Kenya TV, he might have just given Purity Ngirici a lot of sympathy and excuses yet, already the station has been a poorly run failing enterprise that was headed for demise even without government interference.
When, with much pomp and funfair, the conglomerate that owns Mt Kenya TV and sister radio station, Iganjo FM, launched sometime in 2018, it promised to revolutionize the Kikuyu media landscape in what it termed as ‘ituika’ (big revolution).
But hardly a year later after Slopes Media Ltd that is associated with Kirinyaga Woman Rep Purity Ngirici and her husband Andrew Ngirici took over, the so-called big revolution has amounted to a series of false starts and mishap after mishap.
Most noticeable has been the exodus of prominent disgruntled employees.
However, even before problems with the human resource balance sheet, it would appear like Ngirici had not considered the available market share. The present markets are dominated by Royal Media Services and Mediamax Network Ltd via Inooro FM/TV and Kameme FM/TV respectively, and it seems there was an oversight on this fact.
The company kicked off on a troubled note with alleged instances of workers going for long periods without being paid. It is said that a number of workers were later fired within the first year of operation after complaining about unpaid wages.
Frustrated by the state of affairs at the company, Iganjo FM Head of Radio Kihara Wa Gathua resigned almost immediately together with his TV counterpart Macharia Gachuru.
Monica Kagoni who was Gachuru’s deputy, also appeared to be unable to put up with the pay schedule and exited after a while.
https://web.facebook.com/471613413216301/videos/300398451593744
Related
[ad_2]
Source link
