By Patricia Mollyne Mataga
Royal Media Services remains the king in the Kenyan media industry, a new survey has revealed.
The state of the media report released by the Media Council of Kenya on Thursday, May 2, 2024, indicates that Citizen TV and Radio Citizen command the highest viewership and listenership respectively.
The overall survey had a target survey sample size of 3580 respondents covering all 47 counties in the 8 regions.
In the list of the most-watched TV stations, Citizen TV remained number one at 35 per cent of the respondents followed by NTV at 11 per cent and KTN home at number three with 8 per cent.
KTN News, K24 and KBC tied at number four with each of them having 7 per cent of the respondents saying they watch the station’s news bulletins.
“Citizen TV emerged as the most-watched Television Station in the past one week to the survey, commanding a substantial viewership of 35% in both 2023 and 2022. It was followed by NTV with 11% of viewership, and KTN Home with 8%,” read part of the report.
Citizen Radio was also ranked number one in the most-listened Radios in the country followed by Radio Jambo, Radio Maisha, Milele FM and Radio 47 in that order.
In addition, the survey revealed that at least 26% of the surveyed respondents indicated that they read a newspaper in a typical week, which is a 3% drop from 2022 (29%).
Daily Nation was the most-read newspaper, commanding a significant readership of 35% in 2023 compared to 42% in 2022. It was followed by the Standard at 21%, Taifa Leo at 14%, and the Star at 8%.
The report was released ahead of the marking of the 2024 World Press Freedom Day marked on May 3, every year.
The theme of this year’s Press Freedom Day is – A Press for the Planet: Journalism in the Face of the environmental crisis.
The day helps in reiterating that the public must always have access to all kinds of information and the government should support it in creating a safe space for journalists to do their jobs.