edition-dw-akademie-in-the-service-of-the-public-functions-and-transformation-of-media-in-developing-countries-pdf

job polishing of skills such as reporting and production, filterdown through other areas. 53 The managing director is inno doubt that Freedom Radio has some of the best and mosthighly-trained staff of any outfit in Nigeria. He points outthat the station has 4 interns with the BBC; two of the BBC’scorrespondents in the region are from Freedom Radio; theVOA stringer in Kano is a Freedom Radio journalist, as is theDeutsche Welle stringer in Kano. 54 However, Freedom Radiohas no dedicated organizational structure for capacity building.Most training is provided as just described, either on thejob by more experienced colleagues or with the help of internationalorganizations.Training is also provided in the use of modern recordingequipment. A major concern within the broadcasting sectoris the lack of modern and well-maintained equipment: often,even if the studios are well equipped, the individual journalist,rarely financially secure, cannot afford up-to-date tools ofhis or her own. Freedom Radio makes sure that each journalistworking for the outlet has, at the very least, a laptop or a tabletwith the necessary software and access to digital recordingequipment. As an interviewee explains, in order to encourageresponsible care and use of the equipment, the journalistsare required to purchase them from Freedom Radio, but atjust 40% of the actual price, which they can also pay in instalments,if necessary. Thus they are co-owners and bound to bemore careful. The station then also employs an IT expert whocomes into the station to train staff in the use of the equipment.55 There is an IT department, responsible primarily formaintaining and updating the website (which is hosted out ofthe USA).Most journalists enter upon their professional careerswoefully unprepared; this level of support for staff is highlyunusual in the media sector. It engenders a degree of loyaltyamong those who work for the outlet, although a note of cautionwas sounded by an independent source with regard topay, since it is widely known that pay is not high across theentire sector. (This leads to journalists being only too happyto accept the ‘brown envelopes’ that buy their loyalty or theirsilence.) The interviewee cited one example of a Freedom Radiojournalist who worked for the station for 9 years on a casualbasis but was “poached” by another station that offeredhim something more solid. 56Financing, Management and Newsroom StructuresAs a commercial outfit, Freedom Radio has at the top of itsmanagerial structure a board of directors, the highest policyformulatingbody, and, overseeing the professional sphereof activity, an editorial board, which is set up to include thestation managers and the general manager of operations,members of civil society, including veteran journalists, andtwo representatives from the board of directors. 57 On the nextlevel, there is the headquarters management team, headedby the managing director and overseeing business development,operations, administration and finance, and Engineer-ing, with each department headed by a general manager.Alongside this there is also a station management team: eachstation is headed by a station manager and has four departments:news and current affairs, programming, marketing,and engineering. 58Each of the station managers reports back to the headquartersmanagement team and the managing director. Eachstation is encouraged to be largely independent, on an administrativeand an editorial level, since in this part of Nigeria, regionaldifferences can run deep, beginning with the languages.As the managing director put it, “What you can broadcastin Kano will probably set Kaduna on fire.” 59 There is a managementmeeting, with the station managers, every two weeks;the editorial board meets every quarter, to review programsand timetables; and the board of directors meet “wheneverthey want.” 60 There are also regular external audits.The biggest headache for management is the sourcing offunds for a rapidly expanding outfit with a sizeable staff. Revenueis generated primarily from advertising; some advertiserswill also sponsor a program on a regular basis. But the biggestproblem, says one interviewee, is the fact that many oftheir advertisers or sponsors don’t pay on time. 61 In February2004, just months after first going on the airwaves, FreedomRadio opened a commercial office in Lagos, staffed by a smallteam whose sole purpose is to generate – and collect – advertisingrevenue. These days the team numbers six people, plusa car with driver. The state government also advertises withFreedom Radio but this is the least viable source of income,since not only do they have the worst record of non-paymentof all advertisers, they will also not hesitate to use their statusas an income source as leverage. On several occasions in thepast, when the station’s output has in some way ‘displeased,’government advertising has been withdrawn, somethingwhich the station does not easily cope with, since it operateswithin a very tight budget. 62The extent of audience loyalty and the general popularityof the station’s programs are Freedom Radio’s most importantasset when it comes to attracting advertisers. Some advertisersconduct their own surveys, and a media sales andmarketing company called mediaReach also conducts readershipand audience surveys on behalf of the most influentialclients. mediaReach publish the West and Central African MediaFacts Book (mediafacts), a publication that puts the ratingsout there and is widely used by marketers: The radio listenershipdata (North West) in mediafacts 2011 put FreedomRadio at the top of the list by a substantial margin, with 22%of listeners (actual number cited as 30,680,402) saying theytuned in to the station the day before; in distant second placeis KanoBBC (Hausa Service) with 9%. 63 The station has occasionallydone surveys of its own with the collaboration of theBayero University Sociology Dept. which designed audiencequestionnaires for distribution in the surrounding area. 64This area of activity – audience and market research – is onewhich could profitably be improved and expanded upon.It is190