Tracing history of KBC and evolution of broadcasting

This week one of my friends, with whom we toured the Mt. Kenya region last year, called me at about 6.30pm and told me he had just arrived home from the office and was watching a BBC program on YouTube called Escape to the Country which helps house buyers who want to swap city living for a home in the country.

I happened to be at home too relaxing to the program Sundowner on KBC radio and I realised that I have been a keen listener to the show for more than 50 years. This inspired me to delve into the history of radio in Kenya.

The first radio broadcasts in Sub-Saharan Africa were made in the early 1920s. The earliest recording of a radio broadcast was made in 1923 in South Africa. It was Mendelssohn’s “Auf Fluegeln des Gesanges”. In Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban, three organisations — a private club, an advertising group, and a local authority were granted licences to broadcast but they soon ran into heavy debt and were taken over by an entrepreneur who, after some difficulty, moved the stations to commercial viability. However, the government decided that a commercial service would not provide the solution that they sought bearing in mind the political challenge that was beginning to foment. They looked instead, at what happened in Britain and invited John Reith, the BBC’s first director-general, to help them devise a national form of broadcasting on which they could keep a tight rein.

Transmission by radio in Kenya started in 1927 with the advent of the East African Broadcasting Corporation (EABC) which relayed BBC news. English broadcasts began in 1928. The target of the broadcasts were white settlers who monitored news from their home countries and other parts of the world, and it was not until much later that the indigenous people of the country were considered.

In 1931 an agreement was made between the colonial government and the Imperial International Communication Company Ltd (IICC) which was to take over the responsibility of broadcasting for a period of 25 years. Later the IICC became Cable and Wireless Ltd and from my youth, I can vaguely remember their base station with an assortment of tall radio masts at Ruiru near the junction of Thika Superhighway and Kiganjo Road after Exit 13. The Kikuyus called this place Kimbo (an adulteration of Cable) by which name it is still known today.

During World War II, a large contingent of Africans were dispatched to the battle front in Burma, Ethiopia and elsewhere. It was thought expedient that broadcasts targeting Africans should be started to inform parents and relatives of African soldiers about what was happening at the war front. Asian and African programmes were introduced during this period. By 1945 two Christian radio stations were broadcasting in Kenya.

In 1953, the first broadcast service for Africans was created. African Broadcasting Service (ABS) transmitted services in Swahili, Dholuo, Kikuyu, Kinandi, Kiluhya, and Arabic. Even then, broadcasts to Africans remained a small part of the total output and the focus was mainly on white interests.

Meanwhile, the commercial lure of radio was already becoming a reality with the likes of Peter Colmore exploiting radio advertising jingles for the corporate world and promoting local artistes. It was also not lost on the authorities, the power of radio in broadcasting propaganda to Africans during the state of emergency which was declared in October 1952.

A commission was set up in 1954 by the colonial government to look into the future of broadcasting in Kenya. As a result of the recommendations of that commission, Kenya Broadcasting Services (KBS) was established in 1959 and regional stations were set up in Mombasa (Sauti ya Mvita), Nyeri (Mt. Kenya Station) and, Kisumu Station in Nyanza (at the time incorporating Western Province and Kericho District).

In 1960, the wind of change was blowing across the African continent and it became evident that it was a question of when not if Kenya would gain its independence. The colonial authorities were worried that the same mouthpiece that they had used to spread propaganda against the Mau Mau could be used to stir up trouble against them and they instituted strict measures to censure broadcasting.

A year after Kenya became independent in 1963, KBS was changed to Voice of Kenya (VOK). In 1989, parliament reverted VOK to Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC).

During the rule of President Daniel arap Moi, KBC once more became the mouthpiece of the government, each broadcast beginning with what the president had been doing that day. When President Mwai Kibaki took over in 2002, he took a more objective and proactive approach and since then Kenya has witnessed a proliferation of private radio stations broadcasting in almost all languages spoken in Kenya.

While a multitude of FM radio stations have mushroomed over the years, KBC has remained conservative in its presentation and programme line-up providing news, decent entertainment, educational material through its daily broadcasts to schools, and other informative programs. Some of these FM stations are known to use vulgar language and otherwise explicit material and they tend to focus more on gossip and building personality cults.

Call me old fashioned, reactionary, conservative or boring but, at least with KBC I don’t have to flinch and reach for the dial when I am listening within earshot of my grandchildren! KBC provides good old family listening.