I met a man from Bungoma last Tuesday who has listened to KBC every single morning since 1969. In our interactions, he averred that he hadn’t missed a single KBC morning broadcast since he was 23 years old. Not one.
He used to listen to the broadcast with his wife. Unfortunately, she passed on two years ago. Nevertheless, he still tunes in everyday because the voices make him feel the deceased is still in the room.
I don’t have a spreadsheet for that. No data point. It will not appear in any board justification or strategic plan. But it’s the truest thing I have come to know about public radio.
We broadcast in 23 languages
Some of them don’t have spell checks on any computer. Some are spoken in communities you cannot reach by tarmac. But we found a way to put them on air, because that is what a national broadcaster does. Fifteen stations, from the coast to the lake, from the city to the cattle camps. Not because its profitable but because it’s necessary.
This week, we opened our doors for the first time to the public and let Kenyans into our studios. A girl from Kibera stood in our newsroom and said she wants to tell stories about her home. A farmer called to say that our agricultural programme changed how he plants – his harvests have doubled. A blind listener thanked us for being the only station that remembers to describe what others cannot see.
None of this is going to make headlines. It is not designed to. It is just us here at KBC, doing what we do, letting people see it. We do not share these moments to impress you. We share them because they are the evidence that public radio is not a relic. It is a lifeline.
But here is what keeps me up
I watch young producers, talented, idealistic, could work anywhere, walk our doors because we cannot pay them what private media pays. I watch engineers keep fifty-year-old transmitters and spare parts with ingenuity. I watch our archives, decades of Kenyan voices, slowly fading on magnetic tapes while we wait for digitization funds that never quite arrive. This same week we are celebrating radio; I approved yet another request to defer capital expenditure. We cannot afford to fully digitize our archives; we cannot afford to train our staff on AI tool reshaping global broadcasting . We cannot afford to market ourselves the way private companies do. Yet…
Our producers don’t want to leave. They show up. They serve. They believe in public radio. They want to translate emergency broadcast into every mother tongue. They want to build and archive so a student in 2050 can hear how Kenyans spoke and dreamed. They want to prove that radio is not dying. It is just waiting for a generation to reinvent it.
They just need the tools
To our beloved Government. Public radio is infrastructure. As vital as roads, as water, as the electricity that powers those transmitters. When we broadcast vaccination campaigns, children live. When we air market prices, farmers get fair deals. When we teach literacy over the airwaves, grown men and women learn to write their own names. When the country faces a moment that requires calm, accurate information; we become the firewall in this era of misinformation.
Not every home has data. Not every village has 4G. But radio finds the last mile. Radio speaks 23 languages. Radio costs nothing to receive.
We are grateful for the support we receive, and we are hopeful that as Kenya grows, its public broadcaster will grow too. Not for our sake, but for the millions who still depend on radio as their only primary source of information.
Imagine a national broadcaster with the mandate fully funded. Not just surviving but thriving. Studios where young Kenyans learn digital production for free. Archives preserved for future generations, not crumbling with humidity. Regional stations producing content in every mother tongue because language is dignity. AI translating emergency broadcast instantly. Investigative journalism that holds power accountable without fear of advertiser’s retaliation. This is not a dream, this is possible. This is what national public broadcaster looks like.
To the public. We have not told our own story well. We assumed our work would speak for itself. But in an era where everyone is shouting, even good work must raise its voice.
So, if you are reading this and you’ve never really thought about what goes into public broadcasting or if you are one of the people who assume we’re stuck in the past, this week is a good time to check for yourself.
Visit our websites. Follow our social media platforms. Call in and tell us what we are missing. What you want more of. Tell your MP that KBC matters to you and it’s not a line item to be minimized. Tell your children that radio is not their grandfathers’ medium. It is a platform waiting for them to reinvent it.
Radio survived television, it survived the internet, it survived podcast and streaming and the thousand obituaries written for it over ninety years. What it cannot survive is indifference. When citizens engage, institutions improve, when people stop paying attention, institutions fade. We do not want to fade.
As radio week ends, the work continues. Tomorrow morning, the man from 1969 will turn on his radio. A mother in Garissa will learn about child nutrition in Somali. A teacher in a remote primary school will tune in to our educational programming because text books are scarce but airwaves are free.
We will be there; we have always been there
Not because we are the loudest or the most modern. Because we are yours!
Radio isn’t dying . It’s just learning to speak differently and we want you in the conversation.
I believe in it. The thousand plus people who report to work at KBC every morning believe in it. The twelve-year-old from Kibera who wants to tell stories about her home – she believes in it too.
The question is; do you?
