Eliud Owalo, the Cabinet Secretary nominee for the position of Information Communication Technology (ICT) hinted at changing the name of Kenya’s state media, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBc).
Should he succeed Joe Mucheru, Owalo promised to ravitalise the state broadcast to match international media houses standards such as British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
“I don’t understand why they changed the name from the “Voice of Kenya” to KBC. Changing it back to the original name format will make the station a market leader,” said Owalo.
He said the station has a wide range of network globally but has been for centuries punching way below its weight in the market place.
Among other changes he mentioned was to re-engineer the content of KBC to get effective positioning in the market by leveraging ICT.
If approved for the position, he also promised to revitalise KBC infrastructure to work in tandem with market needs, bench-marked with global practices.
“The issue of KBC will just be one of my thematic areas of intervention. I would want to be held accountable by virtue of having a clear performance indicator as far as turning KBc is concerned.”
Besides, KBC, another state news agency Owalo promised to rework its content is Kenya News Agency (KNA).
In 1989, under the reign of former President Daniel Moi, Kenya’s Members of Parliament reverted the corporation’s name from Voice of Kenya (VoK) to KBC.
It was then that the station became the mouthpiece of the Kenyan government.
But before then, a commission was set up in 1954 by the colonial government to look into the future of broadcasting in Kenya.
This saw the birth of Kenya Broadcasting Services (KBS) in 1959 with a set-up of regional stations in Mombasa (Sauti ya Mvita), Nyeri (Mt. Kenya Station) and, Kisumu Station in Nyanza (at the time incorporating Western Province and Kericho District).
A year after Kenya became independent in 1963, KBS was changed to Voice of Kenya.
