100 Years of Broadcasting Radio in Africa
Millions of people across Africa rely heavily on radio as their primary source of information, education and entertainment. This has been the case for about 100 years – and it hasn’t ended with the evolution of the smart phone.
The influence of radio as the most accessible means of mass communication in Africa cannot be disputed. 100 years after the first radio broadcasts on the continent, it is fascinating to assess the evolution of this tool through generations and its survival and enduring relevance through various technological advances.
In days gone by, it was common to see folks in the cities and villages “recharging” their dry batteries in the sunshine to enable them listen to their transistor radio sets. Today, people have to keep their phone batteries charged because phones have become the most convenient means of listening to the radio.
It is true that radio broadcasting has always connected with African societies whose communication was traditionally based on the spoken language rather than the written word. Approximately four in every five of people surveyed by the Media Council of Kenya in 2022 said that they rely on radio for information. Two in every five of the surveyed respondents who listen to the radio indicated that they tune in during the morning hours, between six am and ten am, during the breakfast shows, on their commute to work.
Approximately four in every five of people said that they rely on radio for information.
The Internet Is Making Radio Even More Accessible
The rapid transition from Short Wave and Medium Wave to Frequency Modulation (FM) radio signals in the last three decades means African broadcasters are now able to offer better quality and reliable transmissions to listeners without the barriers of noise interference and high consumption of power. In 2022, due to rising demand for additional frequencies in Africa, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) allocated new FM broadcasting frequencies to countries on the continent.
Even though internet penetration is still low in much of Africa, internet bandwidth costs and prices of smartphones are falling. Most radio stations in Africa have invested in an online presence, along with mobile applications that offer listeners the option of streaming broadcasts via their mobile phones, tablets, laptops and other devices.
More than 80 per cent of people in Africa own a mobile phone with access to a cellular network. This has provided a dramatic boost for radio listenership and the ability of radio stations to interact with their listeners through SMS and messaging applications – for example WhatsApp and Telegram, which are now the platforms of choice for both text and voice notes.
Radio journalists can now file audio and images from far-flung areas in real time, update the stories on social media and post them on their station websites thanks to smart phones. Listeners are offered subscriptions to news alerts via text from their favourite radio stations, keeping them informed of developments on-the-go.
Sustaining Indigenous Culture Through Vernacular Radio Stations
The popularity of stations broadcasting in local languages in both rural and urban areas is one of the unique strengths of radio in Africa. These stations have been influential in sustaining indigenous culture – mainly by keeping these languages alive and providing a platform for expressing the cultural identities of the communities they reach, for instance through art and music. Their participatory approach to addressing the challenges of public health, environmental conservation, social change and civic engagement in their target audiences has been effective and widely acclaimed.
Radio stations broadcasting in local languages are one of the unique strengths of radio in Africa.
South Africa arguably has the biggest number of such broadcasters in Africa with more than 200 community radio stations producing programs in a number of languages, a significant majority of which serve disadvantaged communities. The country’s Broadcasting Act 1999 (Chapter VI) states that the programming provided by a community broadcasting service must reflect the cultural, religious, language and geographical needs of the people in the community. It must also provide a distinct broadcasting service dealing specifically with community issues that are not normally dealt with by other services covering the same area.
The role of vernacular radio stations in some of the bloodiest conflicts in Africa has been controversial. The often-cited example is that of Radio-Television Libre Des Mille Collines (Free Radio and Television of the Thousand Hills) in Rwanda that was found culpable of fomenting the genocide in 1993-1994. In 2011, a Kenyan radio presenter, Joshua Arap Sang, was accused of using his programme at Kalenjin-language radio station Kass FM to incite violence after the 2007 elections.
The five charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC) were dropped in 2016, but the episode brought into sharp focus the role of radio stations in conflict situations in Kenya, and led to closer monitoring of the content on vernacular radio stations by regulatory bodies and human rights groups.
On the other hand radio stations like Radio Okapi in the DRC, Radio Miraya in South Sudan, and the UN-supported radio stations in Mali have been important tools for peacebuilding in countries emerging from the ravages of conflict.
Radio During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Radio has proved to be an efficient and cost-effective educational tool during health crises in Africa, when schools were shut and millions of children sent home. During the coronavirus pandemic, Sub-Saharan Africa had the highest number of schoolchildren unable to participate in remote learning online – but radio lessons ameliorated what would have been a catastrophe. In Kenya, educational radio programmes that started in 1967 acquired new significance during the Covid-19 lockdown because children were able to continue their learning through the radio broadcasts.
In South Sudan, UNICEF and the country’s Ministry of General Education and Instruction launched a country-wide radio-based education program called Education on Air (EoA). The Radio Teaching Programme that had been established in Sierra Leone during the 2014–2016 Ebola crisis came to the benefit of school children when Covid-19 struck in 2020 and schools were closed for seven months.
Radio also proved to be an effective way of countering the misinformation (infodemic) associated with Covid-19. 39 per cent of people surveyed across Africa said that radio was their preferred source of information on the pandemic. Radio stations ran public health campaigns about Covid-19, transmitted the regular updates from the health authorities and conducted interviews with experts to address questions from their listeners.
Radio proved to be an effective way of countering the misinformation associated with Covid-19.
The pandemic however took a heavy toll on the operations of radio stations and the welfare of their staff, with many companies closing or slashing budgets due to lost business. The Kenya Editors Guild estimates that up to 600 journalists may have lost their jobs during the pandemic, and the South Africa National Editors Forum found that more than 3,000 journalists were declared redundant during that period.
100 Years of Radio in Africa
Radio has been at the centre of the most transformative moments in the continent’s history. The earliest recording of a radio broadcast in Sub-Saharan Africa was made in 1923 in South Africa, which was a piano performance of the classical piece “Auf Flügeln des Gesanges” (“On Wings of Song”) by German composer Felix Mendelssohn.
In Kenya, English-language broadcasts relayed from London started in 1927, and the Cable and Wireless Company Ltd operated a broadcasting service for the Colonial Government under a Charter from 1931.
The BBC set up the Empire Service in 1932 with short-wave transmissions to the colonies to maintain home ties with British expatriates overseas and with the territories. In the Gold Coast (Ghana) a station called ZOY, which later became the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), made its first public broadcast on July 1935 relaying transmissions from the BBC in London.
In 1937, the Plymouth Committee on “Broadcasting Services in the Colonies” published recommended broadcasting for all the British colonies, using the model of the BBC for the radio services. A committee chaired by Lord Plymouth published a report that recognised the propaganda value of broadcasting to the colonies, whereby British culture and ideas were projected onto the minds of listeners overseas.
World War II presented an opportunity for radio targeted at Africans, as people sought news from the war front where their relatives and friends were stationed. Local language broadcasts in four African languages, Fanti, Twi, Ga, Ewe and later Hausa, were introduced in the Gold Coast in 1943.
Radio has been at the centre of the most transformative moments in the continent’s history.
The liberation of the airwaves across much of Africa in the 1990s transformed access to news and information, and the introduction of commercial radio was a significant moment in the evolution of broadcasting on the continent.
Since the 1990s, radio has become an important forum for discussions and debates on the biggest national and regional issues. Through the popular phone-ins – and now increasingly through the internet and WhatsApp – listeners are able to call into live shows and hold their leaders and public officials to account.
The shifting technological trends have changed how people consume content, as new online audio platforms – including on-demand streaming and podcasts from existing broadcasters and new creators – have disrupted the media landscape dramatically.
The oft-predicted death of radio has not materialised. Instead, radio has grown to embrace new formats through technology – notably mobile phones and the internet, which offer content via streaming and podcasts, allowing newer and younger audiences to listen at their convenience.
A century after the first radio broadcast in Africa, it is astonishing how the medium has undergone massive technological leaps to retain its relevance in African towns and villages today. As the continent enters an age that will be defined by Artificial Intelligence and other new forms of data-driven technology, one thing is certain: radio will continue its evolution and adapt to the new realities, just as it has successfully done over 100 years.
