Royal Media Services had raided KBC again – this time poaching the entire crew running a local vernacular station.
Sources at KBC and RMS said S.K. Macharia has hired the head of Maasai radio station NOSIM FM Diana Daido with her team to start a new FM station targeting the same region covering Nairobi and the wider Narok area.
“S.K. was interested in Diana,” said the source, “But she insisted she has to move with the whole team. He was left with no option.” This is a major blow for KBC as NOSIM is the biggest revenue earner for the state-broadcaster, raking in an average of Sh20 million.
S.K., Kenya’s king of vernacular radio, has stations in major communities and Maasai, though initially to be pastoralists with no buying buyer, have turned into a lucrative market as technology turns radio into a commodity and the community’s lifestyle changes to sedentary.
