Radio remains a significant information and communication tool especially in the rural areas. In 2013, KRC with major funding from Broederlijk Delen founded KRC 102 FM Radio as part of its broader communication strategy. KRC FM’s major objective was to communicate evidence-based information to the farming community, thus deriving its brand name, the “Farmers’ Voice”. Since its establishment, a number of programs have been aired but there has not been any study conducted to establish its listenership.
As such, this study was specifically conducted to:
- Assess the audience listenership landscape to FM radios stations in the Rwenzori Region
- Establish audience preferences to the different program segments across the FM radio stations in Rwenzori Region
- To gather listeners’ perspectives, feedback and recommendations for improvement in KRC FM radio programming and listenership
A total of 442 people from Rwenzori region participated in the study. Data was collected using the M-water Mobile App that uses Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates, which makes it easier to determine the spread and coverage of survey sample.
Key findings
The study revealed that, a total of 41 FM radio stations are listened to by the wider community in the Rwenzori region
Voice of Kamwenge (VOK) followed by KRC FM topped the list of the most listened to radio stations at 35.0% and 10.5% respectively.
It was also revealed that the most popular radio brands in the Rwenzori Region are VOT (46.8%) followed by KRC FM and VOK FM both at 32.4%.
The study also revealed that people most listened to the news programs (39.9%), followed by human rights educative programs (14.3%) and family affairs (14.3%).
For KRC FM to improve on its listenership, the people recommended the following: Increase area coverage; improve network or signal; conduct community outreaches and interact with people; Having more educative programs and robust advertising strategy.