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When I first begin to re-familiarize myself with
living in Ethiopia, there were comparisons that I
could not help but make. I suppose that this is only
natural since have the tendency to compare and
contrast the things that they know. The one thing
that I did not see any improvement on and that I
kept commenting on until only recently was the lack
of a choice of radio stations.
Returning home from a country where radio stations
are a dime a dozen, it was a pain in the neck not to
be able to switch from one station to the next when
the song or the programme that was on was not to
your liking. I for one do not like the hassle of
having to worry about what sort of digital
entertainment I have to carry around in order to
make up for a service that should be readily
available in the 21st century.
But since I have been here, there has been an
increase in the number of stations that you can flip
through on your radio. For those cruising on the FM
bandwidth, we now have a whopping six stations to
choose from throughout the day, broadcasting between
12 and 18 hours. For those such as myself who had
been complaining about the lack of radio diversity,
the fact that you can now choose whatever station
you want to listen to at any given time during the
day is a welcome relief in a way, but in this
instance it is more of a curse rather than the
blessing that we had been hoping for.
There are two privately run and four public radio
stations on our airwaves that offer an array of
programming for our ears. As I have already stated,
having the number of stations to choose from is
wonderful, but once the initial awe of having all
your car radio stations set to actual stations that
work wears off, it dawns on you that the fact still
remains that there is nothing to listen to on the
radio.
This does not mean that you listen to static when
you are flipping though the stations. On the
contrary, there are news and talk shows and music
shows with foreign and local entertainment tid-bits
here and there. However, there has been nothing on
the air that would capture one's interest enough to
be like "wow," I like what this station has on the
line-up and the sort of presentation they have so I
am going to make this my number one station. On the
contrary, what we have is uniformity and a lack of
original programming that makes you gag when you
hear the same thing on every station, just with
different voices. If you think about it, don't they
all sound the same, each one with the same fake
voices? What is that about? Where has all the
creativity gone? Why do I feel like I am being
entertained in an Orwellian manner?
The radio is the most powerful media tool that we
have in the country, being that it is the one that
reaches largest number of people. In other words,
this is the surest way to reach the people and
implement whatever sort of social, political, and
economic change the media holders feel is best. This
does not mean that the content should be limited; it
would be unfair of any of us in the media business
to assume that the public cannot decide for itself.
What we should assume is that it is our
responsibility to cater to the breadth of the
population and capture their attention in a manner
that is constructive, engaging and capable of
bringing about significant improvement.
Objectivity and originality must always be
maintained no matter what the information being
circulated. When it comes to the radio in Ethiopia,
there is no such thing. It is as though many of the
subjects that are affecting the daily lives of the
people that are accessing the media are not even
touched upon. Everything is like eating plywood: dry
dangerous and definitely boring. For me it has
become a matter of flipping at just at the right
time so you catch music back to back, and by the
time you miss you are already at your destination.
To make matters worse, someone, whoever they may be,
decided that it would be interesting to add call-in
talk shows. It's not really an issue to have the
shows themselves, what is an issue is the lack of
choice. I have heard people call in and talk about
wife beating and whether this is an acceptable tenet
of marriage, or on cheating spouses - issues that
are more coffee table talk than radio talk. This is
not the social message that we should want to
project. At least this is not the sort of message
that I would think need to be addressed considering
the infinite amount of problems that our country and
people are facing. Why aren't those things being
talked about on the radio?
Why do I feel like everything is being glossed over
and made to look very pretty and rosy, while the
real picture is nothing like that? Not to say that
things are in a horrible situation, but it would be
smart to use such a powerful tool to reach the
people and give them information that can equip
them, not with questions about the premier League,
but with solutions to the daily challenges that they
have in front of them. |
