Ibadan Radio Broadcast Market and Tug of Dual-Poaching Strategy

When one looks at the creation and sustainability of media establishments in Nigeria before and post-independence eras, there is no doubt that media entrepreneurs in the south region are better than those in the north region. From the first newspaper, Iwe Iroyin fun Awon Egba ati Yoruba, to the first television station, the Western Nigeria Television, the south-western part of Nigeria has proved and still establishing its dominance in the media industry.

In the early and late 80s and 90s, the region had quite significant number of new media organisations, created and sustained by government and private individuals. While Ibadan dominated the region media space in the days of parliamentary system of governance, especially in the area of television broadcast, Lagos, the second home of most Yoruba and Igbo, largely controlled the print and radio media space with a number of community, state and national outlook newspapers. Meanwhile, with the emergence of the new technologies, media friendly environment and increase in public consumption of media contents, the two cities could be said to be in quasi-media establishment creation and sustainability.

Beyond dwelling on the nature of the media establishment in the two cities, this piece focuses on the performative behaviour of radio stations that recently founded in Ibadan, the former capital city of the defunct Western Nigeria. Our analyst notes that the stations have employed some strategies for wooing audience. They have also adopted strategies for attracting employees with the intent of creating and capturing value in terms of revenue and profitability.

One of the dual strategies used by the stations is poaching. Application of poaching strategy starts with getting the best employees from the existing stations. For instance, Agidigbo FM and Fresh FM, which recently joined other players in the city used employee poaching strategy. This, according to radio listeners, who spoke with our analyst, has influenced their listening behaviour, changing from the stations which earlier had the employees poached by these two radio stations.

Our check indicates that Agidigbo FM poached the likes of Akinyemi Soul from Fresh FM, Sekinat and Seun Ejodoku Mr D law from Naija FM, GRA from Inspiration FM. These employees were successfully attracted from other stations due to poor renumeration; our check indicates. Apart from using employee poaching strategy, it also emerged that Agidigbo FM used a subsidy to attract audience. For instance, commercial drivers who listen to the station in their vehicles and discovered by the staff of the station automatically have their vehicles fuelled by the station.

From this performative behaviour, it is obvious that competition is becoming more intense in the city such as what has been in existence over the years in Lagos, where audience have a multitude of radio stations to listen to. In another perspective, one of the managers of Ibadan radio stations recently described the competition thus:  I see that with certain numbers of radio station, there is a little lack of capacity in terms of managerial capacity among people that manage these radio stations. The skills are lacking, because you are a presenter does not mean that you can be a good manager; because you are an engineer or a marketer does not mean that you can be a good manager.

Based on these insights and those that would emerge as the competition continues, our analyst notes that owners and managers of the stations need to embrace talent development and acquisition strategies that have adequate sustainability principles instead of stealing employees and audience. It is essential that the strategy is regimentally built on the existing conventional and vocational institutions in the city. The city has a number of institutions that offer media studies and broadcast journalism related courses, where talent could be attracted and nurtured.