Radio Africa Group announces mass lay offs

Radio Africa Group is the latest media house to announce plans to lay off staff members in order to adapt to the changing times.

Radio Africa CEO Patrick Quarcoo sent an internal memo to staffers explaining that a number of employees would be declared redundant.

"As you may have observed in the recent past, there has been a shift in the media industry that has over time forced us to make changes in our business model, to maintain our competitive edge as a company.

"As management, we have been faced with a situation that requires a critical business decision to be made to ensure business continuity. We will therefore be reorganizing our internal business operations and in the process, we may declare numerous positions redundant based on the new structure," the internal memo read in part.

Radio Africa CEO Patrick Quarcoo Pulse Live Kenya

Among the media brands owned by Radio Africa Group are Kiss 100, Classic 105, Radio Jambo, East FM, Smooth FM, The Star newspaper, and Kiss Television.

Kenya’s legacy media houses have been struggling to keep up with shrinking revenues and changing trends in the consumption of media.

In Q4, Nation Media Group was among the first media houses to lay off a number of key staff including senior news anchors and long-serving editors.

Among those who left include Mark Masai, Dennis Okari, Churchill Otieno and Mutuma Mathiu.

This follows an announcement on August 4, 2022, in which the company communicated its decision to make personnel changes.

“On November 4, 2022, we announced changes to accelerate our business transformation agenda to assure our success in the long term and the sustainability of our journalism.

“We take this opportunity to sincerely thank everyone for the role they continue to play in our transformation journey with diligence, commitment and passion,” the statement read.