Rose Kimotho — transcript

Regional Reach

This transcript is generated automatically by YouTube and has not been checked by a person. It misspells names and mishears words, particularly around Kenyan English and company names, so read it as a guide to the conversation rather than a quotable record. Each timestamp opens the video at that moment.

0:04 [Music] good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to episode 12 of the African do podcast uh today we're very very privileged to have a fabulous guest uh I dare say so myself uh Miss Rose kimodo who has a fabulous story to tell us and a fabulous story that I've been looking to hear for a while and I look forward to it Rose welcome to the podcast thank you thank you leard for having me yeah so um you you don't need an introduction in a Kenyan context because you're a very um I'd say visible personality but maybe let's go back to uh the beginning of your career yeah and um I was reading like I was telling you recently I was reading uh Roger stedman's uh biography and I I found out that his interaction his initial interaction with you was as a marketer so maybe we can start there and you can tell us a bit about your your life as a brand marketer and how

1:06 how that now through you into this whole advertising media space well thank you Leonard again for having me um but my life goes before I became a marketer I started Life as a journalist okay my previous life wow I started off as a journalist I did journalism at the school of Journalism at the University of Nairobi and I remember the director calling us in before we did our final exams and saying that Hillary gueno who then was the big name I mean he I mean weekly review and then he launched Nairobi times yes Hillary asked to be given two of the top students M um so the director called us and said I've recommended you and his name is Peter K now he's a professor I think at the University of Pennsylvania or somewhere yeah and so you were like what the guru Hillary in gueno going to work there so I remember going he was just off Mo Avenue M the off is there and so we got

2:03 jobs before we actually finished our exams he said as soon as you finish your final exams come so I got my first job there I started writing um I started working and writing for Peter was put in weekly review and I was in Nairobi timesh and I think that's the first time I experienced when they say discrimination as a woman because as we went in Peter was put straight into writing political stories and all the hard stories and I had to do the soft stories you know Leisure Museum entertainment Dr you know berard's Children's Home that type of writing okay and I remember thinking this is a real man's world even The Newsroom the smoke everybody was smoking and typewriters it was those days 1978 yeah wow so um that's how I started life and and then on one of my assignments I was doing another soft story about palm oil I came across you I wanted to I was assigned to interview somebody in univa

3:00 and they referred me to their agency she ogan MAA okay and then I met a gentleman there who was in charge of the UN account his name was Jerry sh the account director and I turned up at ogan me they were in House at that time and I didn't even know advertising agencies existed I didn't know what they did yeah my knowledge of advertising was posters you saw them you saw the posters in the papers and that was it so none of this strategizing branding you know creating Brands you know copywriting so to cut a long story short we went for lunch with him and other directors and during lunch they offered me a job and I said to do what they said to write copy I said what do you write copy for then they explained to me about and I think what fascinated me is what he explained over lunch cuz I had no clue what they did you how they take a brand they

3:49 position it they you need to write the copy you need to identify the target group you know and I thought I liked more of the offices you know it was all very por it it was Swanky it was not like a journalist it wasn't like The Newsroom with full of smoke I think that's what actually made my decision flipped and I joined so that's 1980 I started my career okay yes so you did like two years in the in in Nairobi times a very short time but before that I had worked during the holidays at the Standard newspaper work at the standard Newsroom and then I joined myth and never looked back and so you transitioned into into into advertising and then we worked our of course the major client East Africa Industries at that time un the big yes um and so I had to learn I moved from copywriting into the service client service side and eventually moved on to McAn Ericson was General Manager joined the board of

4:45 Manan and from Maan Ericson I started Regional reach so that's so I was in ading for 12 years yeah so Regional reach is an interesting story so you have you trained as a journalist went into advertising and then you go into Regional and I I remember reading about Regional reach and I remember this was I found it to be quite an Innovative way to communicate to the masses maybe you can tell us a bit about what Regional reach was in its original state um and you used to record stuff and and show it in in in in Social Halls what what inspired that or what pushed you to go down that road well you see people today can't imagine Kenya at a time where there there wasn't free free media yes you see in those days in the 70s and ' 80s the only main station was Kenya BR KC and that was it as a TV and general service English service and then vernacular stations that came on TOS

5:46 each language yes the first time we had a private radio station or TV station was KTN mhh and it was KTN was just limited to Nairobi yes so outside Nairobi your choice was KBC then soon after uh Capital FM came on yes and that was it that was a choice for a while for a while so as we worked for advertisers like univa at the time 70% of Kenya's population was rural based and 30% Urban based yes so there was always a challenge how do you reach the rural consumer because apart from KBC and radio how do you talk to them you're selling Kimbo or Cowboy or the brands whatever you are selling you need to reach or more detergent how do you the mama in the rural areas or the man mhm again electricity wasn't so electricity was only limited to the main roads true so the trading centers had electricity outside the trading centers no electricity so even people who could afford TVs and therefore have access to

6:45 KBC could was not didn't have electricity unless you had a generator so there was always a challenge when they came to meetings they said how do we reach this consumer so I remember thinking these are the people they have some money they are big they have the potential they the future how do you reach them then I remember I went for a meeting in South Africa yeah um in I think it was sometime in 80 0 1991 before they before Mandela before Mandela yeah and they had to make really special Arrangements you know you got your Visa done on a different piece of paper the passport said all countries except South afri South Africa yeah and even there they made arrangements for us to go to Soto cuz I really wanted to go to Soto and when I went to Soto they again they had the same kind of challenge they have this huge African population living in Soo and other townships um the toothpaste

7:34 manufacturers Colgate and others had realized that this a potential Market the white population which at that time I think was 4 million versus whatever the African popul the potential population is the black people but how do you reach them yes they're in so they don't have electricity the same challenges as our rural so somebody in South Africa had come up with the idea of putting up TVs and at Dukas they equivalent of Dukas because very urbanized in South Africa the reverse 70% Urban and 30% rural they put up these TVs where people would sit outside and watch programming which was pre-recorded and then he had placed advertising in between for Colgate and for other brands and so these people at so would go to the shops and watch this and I thought this is a brilliant idea this is what we need in Kenya it's a solution for a rural so it's a TV with a VCR it's

8:27 it's a one unit but it's a VCR at the bottom pre-record it's like cable TV AF St you pre-record local version of cable TV you pre-record the tapes yes you slot in advertising in between because it has somebody has to pay for you PR what you pre-record when we came back here we thought we have to find content that is applicable and relevant to the people and what the we decided those were the times where we had one SP party yes very politically sensitive yes so the one thing we knew is you had to stay out of politics I'm aiku and at that time the were not the flavor of the they were the flavor yeah so the mountain was quiet yeah M the MMA was quiet yeah so I had to make sure I steer away from politics because immediately I came up with a concept the suspicion was this is opposition this a KU who want stting starting so we decided we going to have

9:19 educational content agricultural based content we're going to show programs from Ministry of Agriculture mhm because they produced a lot of you know how how do you set up zero gra zero farming you know zero zeroing for the cattle cottage industries how you can convert so there's a lot of programming like that that's available and we'd buy all content from KBC and Ministry of Agriculture so that already gives you a te a yeah entertainment programming was M you know then World Cup the first time we really got a boost is when World Cup was a by KBC of course rural audiences didn't have access to it because they didn't have TVs in their homes so we made a deal with KBC and we said we'll buy that programming they charged as a fee put it on our tapes and show it on our TVs later so for the first time rural audiences could watch World Cup wow a day after two days after who cares

10:18 they got to watch they got to watch it and schools would then we got National Geographic tapes so we'd get calls from schools who would organize for their children school children during the day for us to put play this National Geographic tapes because this the first time kids who are seeing whales and seals and all this stuff that they learned in school and you know how the quality of National Geographic tape so we got into a contract of that and so we show that so it was very educational now what we learned is to get permission to launch this was the major hurdle okay we started off with we had a minister who my sister was married to a minister who was in the right Camp yes so he introduced said you have to go through the PC those were the days when you had the provincial Commissioners yes so we started the Journey of going to see in the Eastern Province the PC I wanted to

11:08 start outside Central Province okay again obvious reasons yeah so we went to see the PC uh who was based in embu from the PC you then got to see the DC he sent it to the DC then you presented your whole case again of course by this time I'm sure they've got people checking on whether youve got of course connected to then from the DC then you go and see several do because it's that's when I learned how the administration Works true yeah then from the do's you get to the Chiefs yeah right down to the trading center then the assistant chief that's when I people don't realize how powerful government is and the network of government true because I remember the first time we went to see the PC and and the p and the caliber of PC by the way top yes the PCS cuz I met PCS from all over the country yes better brains than any brain in the private sector I tell you these guys are

12:05 sharp guys PCS and DCS top quality cuz I remember being thrown and they just listen to you all very reasonable you present your case then send you to the by the time you got to the DC they already knew everything about you then you present again that I remember in y the DC called all the dos and by the time they arrived they knew about you then you went to the deals by the time you go to the deals they are expecting they know everything so the the way the information filters down that's what I think people think we used to hear the hand of the government is long or it really is it filters all the way all the way to the ground yeah so by the time we got the ti from the DC the do the Chiefs would be waiting for us when we went to the little trading centers and the assistant Chiefs because we had to get owners of buildings to give us permission to put up the TVs the telev

13:03 videos yes and the deal was you allow us to use your premises we use your electricity but after 2 years the TV becomes yours that was the incentive okay so they looked after the TVs and then the communities looked after the TVs mm because if you break it you have nothing to watch so in the evenings said' come and watch it and you'd be amazed with all the TVs and we had them all over we launch in kisumu kiss that's when I saw the country yes was sishu I've been all over Kenya because we went into all the little towns in all of them we only got in two cases where somebody stole the TV a thief I mean a criminal but they were recovered wow because the community tells and then the administration must have been hundreds of TVs it was yeah there were hundreds and we went we launched in we started in meu then Neri District then moranga then we went to nakuru then we went to Bigga Kaka

13:54 kissy kisumu I think you know um Professor nangong that time was the MP for we actually lached in his village Village you know so we have been all over the country um it was I loved it I and that must have been brilliant because now okay you've now got the TVs in place but maybe tell us a bit about the Journey of creating the content and distributing the content because you have to get it all around the country so what how are your people moving around or how are you doing that all right so what we did is actually started in my house okay and we bought this video copying machines that we stuck up in one room one of the rooms in my house I stacked up this video machines it was I think young people have no clue how we did things in those days so there were physical cassettes yes the VHS cassettes and you'd stack up like so you'd make 10 copies at a time and I had a a few young

14:45 people who would sit there all day with a programming reproducing copying the cassettes M then we in each district we employed young people and bought their motorbikes long before border borders wow yes have this pictures of the motorbikes we bought and we fitted them with a carry at the back yes so each person each area had a supervisor who had a Bard border bike mhm so he would collect and we had a center so Nairobi served Central then we had in kisumu we served Western yes and uh kisumu area yes and nakuru okay so we'd send this over and then they would distribute them with a motorbike collect the old tap yeah and give them the new tapes and then reuse these tapes for a few times so after a while the quality became bad then we Chang them so we were the biggest consumer of VHS vs yes in those days so you used to import them or buy them locally we used to buy them

15:39 locally um we had a supplier who gave them to us but and at a discount of course of course because you're bu consumer bu consumer and that was a major cost that and the motorbikes the investment because you have to get the tapes distributed and then returned so every week we change them on a weekly basis and this a new medium so how do you then take we've now understood the back end how you you're you're Distributing how you're showing it to the people but now what are you telling the advertisers and yeah now I'd spent by that time what 12 years in advertising so I knew course you knew the Lego yeah so I knew so I went to advertisers and said this is the answer to the problem we' have had all these years I worked my first advertisers or are unever yes because they had been that's their target market a cardb at our launch in meu the very first launch we had I invited advertisers to the

16:33 launches they came ever ready when we launch in akuru the ever ready General managing director was there so they could see for themselves I took them round I got advertising agencies many of them are still in business today and drove them round with me at night for them to witness to see the people watching see watching so the key thing is marketing ourselves MH um we took pictures we then we had continuous trips with clients we took clients to Western Kenya we took them to VGA to Neri they s we took agencies for them to witness the impact and of course they had their own sales people on the ground who who would report back and take pictures and say this works so we worked mainly through the agencies the major agencies whether it is Maan and ogan mea and you know scan and other agencies and so we got advertising it was the first time I saw advertising search you out you know what

17:29 I mean because they loved it they just loved the fact that it's a new medium yes and it's it's fulfilling a need yes then of course in 1998 99 uh the Airways were freed yes were open were open yes so the concept now you know media could then grow and go to the rural areas but until then there wasn't anything so what was it life what was it its cor life I would say when it had that kind of impact 1994 to about 1999 until we launched K so years about 5 years but also five years of a lot of learning a lot of learning a lot of understanding the marketplace um a lot of for me personally seeing my own country because I went to places where you I never I mean Villages down you know whether it's in Wasing ISU in VGA I know Kenya people mentioned a town and I think we used to have we used to have a TV there because each time you went on the ground you had to negotiate

18:25 with the owners of the building for each instance every meeting was a different a new negotiation and then you learned about in the time when I'd had to travel with my brother David yes and when I arrived especially in central Province they didn't I didn't have the impact or meu as a woman yes so he would front for me wow we would arrive and they would ignore me and negotiate with David cuz these are was and their men and they were not going to start negotiating with this woman so we'd be with David and they David would be the managing director wow imagine and he's you have employed your brother but but so I'd have to be take the back seat maybe he's secretary I don't know what they thought I was but uh that's how it worked so you we had to know the Dynamics and the culture so I couldn't walk in there as the owner David was the and he'd get all

19:15 the so long as I got my contract as long as you got that check you but man I don't think many people realiz realize how um how big the strides are we have made as you know and even women in the workplace I think this will be very interesting thing for them to hear and they need to adjust also and to understand cultural contexts ands if I walk in there with my women's lab and feminist you know I'm this have made it through the door through the door uh so I do negotiations with the PCS that level fine yeah they as a matter of fact they were very encouraging they thought this is a novel idea we need to educate the public you know your content is educational it's so at that level it's fine DC level it's fine when you get to the Chiefs I front my brother but I also see a lot of so far what you've told us I see a lot of you reacting to local context in the

20:10 sense that fast you you you you know that I can't be political um and and I'm I'm I'm sure you must have had your personal political views but you're like no this there's a the in order to start I have to H play where I can play otherwise if you're not in the game you know you're not you're not if you're not if you don't have a seat at the table you're not playing any game and so and then of course you come to the context of uh understanding H that in some of these areas you're dealing with old men who might not be so open so you do have quite a bit of local context in in in how you do things yeah and local context for us on this podcast is a big thing because I think it's the least valued asset we have as as people so 1999 Airwaves open and I think that's when Capital FM and and them start to come out uh we were really excited those are

21:12 um those are I was I was just I was finishing I had just finished I had finished high school around when you starting Regional reach I had finished high school and I was now in the work in uni and um seeing the opening of the Airways for us was really exciting even KTN in itself you know it was it was quite exciting so K FM and I'll start Kam FM from let's discuss a bit about licensing because I remember that radio licenses or the licensing of the airwaves was quite even when they said they had liberalized it it was like the political so the politically connected had been given oh here has one license for you and one license for you know and then now you had to so how was your journey on that on that front well I look back and I say well first I give thanks to the almighty because some of these things that happened in my life I really have other than his grace yes but

22:12 it was the time I was in marketing Society of Kenya okay and I was a chairman of the marketing Society from 1997 9899 such a long time ago yes yes and we came up with we discussed the need to Market Kenya MH remember Kenya was under a lot of flck when you look around and this is still the case today we have so much to offer yes but we don't position ourselves right yeah you know you are in the I know I know exactly what you're talking about yeah and the people who are tasked with with coming up with a marketing strategy for the country either seem unable or don't care or they just think very shortterm or they have no idea what marketing is yes so it was a time when New York was running that campaign I love New York yes remember I love yes with a heart yeah NY I heart n and City and how it turned itself around you know I think Bloomberg was the may may then mayo and

23:10 he started off with you know little things you know little the police were would find people for little crimes you know like dropping paper so you you check the little things and the big things take care of themselves you know and he create he repositioned New York then there was a campaign for Spain espania remember it was as a destination and these countries earn huge amounts of money from other countries position themselves you know for their cultural experience now look at Kenya what we have from the we have so much diversity to off so much diversity but the people tasked with seeing that either are blind or it's beyond explanation yeah so we thought as Patriots let's come up with a campaign marketing Kenya campaign yeah and position the country as a brand cuz we good at selling brands let us sell Kenya and there's so much position it first identify who our targets are and

24:03 have this conference so we came up with a marketing Kenya conference in 1998 okay this is under the opes of marketing Society of Kenya where you where I was a chair and I remember for the first time in this country we had the conference opened by the president was President Mo president Mo and at the end of the day it was closed by the vice president who was Professor saoti okay so you could see the people at the very top were intrigued at least you know what you're what you're saying and I remember the giving a speech when the you know and Joe nyaga was a minister for information and broadcasting broadcasting and these are people who Joe understood what we talking about because he was well traveled yes so we did have a caliber of people who understood and I think um kagi was in the ministry of internal security or something yes yes and I think that's how we even managed to get

24:54 the president to come cuz we had to go to the ministry of cuz I had no clue how get yeah yeah yeah so through kagi and and Hezekiah you know those people so we had to go to the ministry of security who then channeled I mean there's a way these things are done then it gets to state house and finally you get a confirmation the president is coming but those people understood what we talking and the potential for this country so the president comes and in his speech you know he refer to me as the gracious Lady it's the biggest compliment I've ever yes after my speech imagine I've never felt Ro mentions it in his yes he does he does yeah that is the same day he appointed the Dream Team yes after conf headed by and and and yes so Kenya was we repositioning becoming a new uh new country and the pressure had come from the West about you can't reposition without freeing the Airways true so I

25:54 remember getting a everybody it was all over that we're going to get so put in your appliation so I remember putting in my application toa's office minister of broadcasting yes saying we want to start a radio station and my credentials are Regional reach yes this is what I've done this is what I need to reach rural people yes but now instead of taking tapes on a motorbike I can do it through the airwaves okay so it makes sense okay and I already had a record you can talk to all the PCS in the country the DCs so they had stuff on me they knew what I can do and I'm nonpolitical of course that time I suffered the Kiku thought I was a sellout yes because they thought yeah she must be how is she how is she getting how is she getting access this other side thought she's a Kiku anyway there's nothing like a good kikuyu yes yes yes so you lose out yeah both sides

26:41 you're in the middle you're in the middle and you you don't have friends at the side but we persisted because we knew our goal so that I think helped the fact that we had done marketing Society of Kenya i' had the the regional reach my content was there and what I wanted was to do more of regional reach but now on air yes so we applied for a radio and a TV license M and I remember going to Jo yaga's office and him saying oh you know we have to talk to NIS Prof Brigadier Boyette or intelligence service we have to get you cleared and all that I said fine I mean I'm sure I've been checked in and out yeah and then getting the news that we have been allocated both radio and TV they gave you both both wow the other people who got their location were I think uh Paul um what's is the radio Africa okay yes yes quaco Patrick qu Patrick quaco got to radio and TV yes citizen mashara yes

27:39 radio and TV uh nation of course radio and TV and of course standard who already okay in so of course these are guys with Deep Pockets so as soon as they got their licenses dang they launched they go out they got out so so Nation launch remember Nation radio and Nation Nation FM and what C launched uh TV and radio and everybody just launched launched launched we didn't have you didn't have the money we didn't have the money we didn't have the Deep Pockets so we looked at at the market and said all the niches have been taken yesil is been taken by citizen mhm Nation na taken English Capital already there topend Engish top um so what is left and the one thing I know from my marketing background is that you must first of all know your Market yes I identify the niches MH do something different find you have to fulfill a need yes yeah otherwise what what need

28:35 are you a lot of people just launch because somebody you know open a pharmacy because somebody has opened a pharmacy or aat St next to the other five five exactly which is how people do business instead of finding out what is it people need yes so I remember looking at this whole media scene and saying well forget Swahili forget English forget all this what is it that people need now I remember every time I went into a kiku's car because remember Kiku had been suppressed yes for years yes um Everybody played loved kikuyu music yes they loved my mother played you know those kikuyu musicians she had those records people had cassettes they were Gia cassettes comedian so I said hey there's a market the fact that people are consuming consuming it but they're ashamed of it because you'd enter somebody's Mercedes and they have got Kiku cette St they stop it and put on Capital FM yes

29:33 because cuz being vernacular I'm a capital but but I'm enjoying it I'm enjoying I love it but there's something I'm embarrassed about so why not make it okay yes why not launch that giv G but the product values of capital yes let it sound like a let it sound give them dignity cool well branded well branded with the same quality the caliber reclaim their dignity their pride excellent cuz what you're selling is not a radio station you're selling dignity and pride who I am you're selling identity my and the rest of it is history don't be embarrassed about who you are proud own it yeah and hey and everybody was those are the days where people sent kids didn't talku because yeah I don't want to I don't want even your name us to call them home name's your home name home name the more you sounded like Capital the better so he hey we not a radio station weing your your idty PR

30:34 and let's come up with a station that reclaims that okay and I remember from day one when we launched kame it it was like wfire well today the vacular sector dominates because that need was with every Afric pent up exactly yeah so that's how we got so that's when I meet you that's that's when I met you professionally because um uh ,000 I start my career with a carnival and then you come to us and tell us that we need to start doing a night for we used to call it Kam night and it was the radio like you said once once you once you launched it took off and then we came up with this night M night and we said okay let's let's take I remember how difficult it was for most places if Capital cuz this our target audience couldn't walk into into Carnival yes caral was so market so yeah it was like just for the rich yeah and our listeners are from oo

31:35 yes so we said no we k your station will take you to the we'll back you and we'll take you there you're cool enough Pride you're cool I remember those nights and then the effort we put in we we had to go and geta and we had to it was amazing and you guys played ball you opened the way for and we opened the way for Carnival to have all the other night for their culture night but they opened the way for other hotels because ultimately it was a numbers game and even the first one we were bit cautious like okay we but then it was a runaway success and and and and that was quite something so it grows and then a lot of fasts the other day I was listening to Carol n speaker podcast K's podcast and Eric was there la he was talking about how he came on to um he came on to um he came to work for K because you needed a balance to show that you're not all kikuyu and I think your news was in

32:43 English and But Eric is Kiku yes yes yeah but but we had non you know K all the even Regional reach we had kenens in Regional reach in we had kenin luas we have always had people from across Kenya agreed in as employees as employees I'm saying on the content side on the content side so he came to read English news on K had somebody Joo doing kahil news on cuz we always been we were accused of being tribal or whatever but we weren't anybody who cared but you know people people don't like get to getus by facts you know they don't like facts they just like they tell the history in whatever way that suits them or suits The Narrative they want to perpetuate so you settle down kamami becomes mainstream but soon like many things in business um you find yourself not alone you know everyone now you are the fast mover and you did get the benefits of being the

33:37 fast mover but others start to come others start to come and how is that journey of running kame yeah well before I even go to that I'd like to State people like to give me credit for kame but the credit doesn't belong to me oh really who doesn't belongs to the team okay let me tell you yeah I always tell people when they say oh you did Kam I did not do K yes the team the Eric Latif you know Kam was launched like Eric said and everybody people don't know people behind the scenes yeso yes Eric La yes the team that was there you even who worked at K oh wow you know some of the people who you what the presenters themselves you know all this guys these are the people who build the brand yes and I remember wo coming in cuz we had I have no idea about radio remember I've just come from some and when was at Capital was as capital so the first thing I did I went

34:36 for a course at du in in Cologne yes in Germany in Germany to learn about radio sponsored by the G instit okay had no clue what was remember I've just come from TV and this is a field so I always say people must learn what they don't know cuz when I went for this course which I mean I loved it was in winter so my my memories of colonies C and buying you know uh but because it was sponsored it was all you know once you're in the buildings they give you allowances and stuff but you still have to walk long distances after taking the bus you know to go to class and go back is to learn this new field cuz radio is a field is a complete and that's as I sat through this course I realized how much I don't know yes you know you need despite having a very vibrant career yeah in media in Media you think so people don't know that they think I'm stting people

35:31 come to me and say I'm stting a radio station and you're doing everything you don't realize the critical roles yes you must have a radio manager the person who runs the person with a creative the person who slots people in the right place and the importance of voice yes they think radio is just anybody with a microphone and talking because you know you can tell so much about a voice if I hear a voice I can tell whether I like the person whether they are kind yes whether they are clever whether you can tell everything about a voice there are morning voices there are midm morning voices there are drive time voices there are evening voices I didn't know any of this oh wow when I went to so even morning would be chirpy and you know and but not too chy yeah not too much yeah not too much because when you wake up and morning must have content that's

36:16 supposed to inspire you when you wake up yeah when you get up the last thing you want is to hear this CH you know in early morning that's a midm morning voice okay mid morning you then need that's why we it wasn't by accident that our morning voice was a lady who very first of all you have to have a brain in the morning you want to inspire people you have to be energetic enough yes you have to be Sut mean just the right amount MH so that was our morning voice and wano knew that she took us through voes she'd come and say this is a morning voice the right voice with the right content and the right because the link has to make sense yes then you get the mid morning voice which is now when people are doing their bashara you need to wake up those ones are now the the vibrant guys vibrant guy so that's when you get and mid morning voice was yes who is now a member of parli of

37:10 honorable yeah so you can see her yes that's enough to wake anybody up complete midm morning personality mid then we had Jo Lugano at lunchtime he's informative telling us about the news yes we had um in the drive time we had PM squ who was very joke you know people who funny guys you don't want too serious stuff a long day now I just want to laugh and relax and wind down and get home then you have the night voice with Sabina she who's A Member of Parliament today yes um and Sabina is a Sury a voice that if you imagine putting a voice like that in the morning to put you back to sleep work it won't work yeah yeah so now you're getting into more personal one to one uh just listening to her voice her velvety voice her delivery her so each voice has a place and you have to understand what people are looking for within that time segment and the voice compliments that

38:03 and delivers that but today people just say oh I like you you're my brother come and do my morning show do work it doesn't work so there's a science behind it I like that that aspect that you have brought out because it's a very strong aspect I think in any investment entrepreneurial venture yeah that that studying you know feeling that gaps that you may have but but first it has to start with the acknowledgement that you have gaps exactly that you don't know it all you don't know anything yeah you're starting a field you have to know as much as possible and then get the best people possible yes wano was the best person possible the team that was there Eric these were the best people possible when we launched K24 again we went out and got the best people possible it took us forever to convince Jeff Kang to come but I pleaded with him on the phone he was in South

38:56 Africa yes I pleaded yes with his wife day after day I'd call and have long conversation and he told me Rose if you convince my wife I'll fly up but you have to convince her and she didn't want to leave South Africa so but you persist because once you get the right people in place then so now that's a good place to segue into into TV so you you started with radio because all niches had been taken you found your Niche you conquered it so to speak but now you of course with budgetary constraints you're now you could have done you have the TV license but you've not utilized it so now we have established radio yes and we think you know they say a business had to keep growing if you stay static you die so you want you to grow true so we have a a TV license and we want to grow K so we have the radio license the TV so Branch out to TV again we knew nothing

39:51 about t yeah we know everything same learning curve same learning curve and then examining the market uh remember those are the days when you had citizen Nation KTN mhm we looked at what they offered and they all did the same thing they all copied KBC MH which was 1:00 news in Kil MH 7:00 news in Kil yes 9:00 news English if you miss the 1:00 news which is when everybody got fired or something yeah yes you had to wait for 7:00 news mhm if you missed and then 7:00 was kahili for some reason you don't do English at 7 m and then nine it's the educated guys so we had so I remember thinking well the first thing we did Is We I reached out at there was a conference at the Serena Hotel um I think Al jazer was just launching and they had a huge media conference we had Al jazer BBC you know the big International companies were holding and we attended as as media

40:48 owners that time I was chairman of media owners yes association association yeah and one of the people who presented his name was Kent T he was the vice president of CNN Technical and he talked about how technology has evolved and now the equipment that used to cost thousands of dollars has come down because with each year with technology everything gets smaller and gets cheaper and now you can launch a TV station with a new software new equipment for much less you know like for a million dollars true so and that intrigued me and I thought hey if costs have come down I should get in touch with this guy cuz he had launched stations in Turkey he had launched CNN in Turkey he had launched stations in India and he was talking about how everything the cost the way of doing things robotic cameras have made life easier you don't have to have

41:33 people in the studio so I wrote an email to him because I got his card and then I just wrote blind I said my name is Ros Kim we live in and I gave him the story of K and I gave him and he was intrigued cuz he had loved Kenya when he came for the for the conference yeah and I started communicating with him telling him how you know we want to get into this Market I I described how Nation standard have this seven you know that Kenyan of copying copying and I want to come up with something something different an Nish and he really loved he says he just loved the concept because we said what if we give people news instead of 1:00 we give them news at 1 2 3 4 what rule is there that you can't have English news at 7 why can't you have news all the time yes and remember in those days the news was in all the stations was you start off with the president what where he has been what he

42:25 has done followed by the minister yes or the vice president then the minister then the P you know that was the pecking order yes then you had business news which was a different category so even if a business person did something that was newsworthy they never got the top slot true they had to wait for the business for the business segment after we have covered everything else we used to live in a difficult time and then no news about anybody else nobody else was a newsmaker so we said why don't we come up with a station where the newsmakers are you and me the newsmaker is the asari why can't he make new yes why can't we start off our News Bulletin withon who aari at this place thisen people want to know about each themselves true so that was a concept we said let's talk about us stories yeah sure let the others cover president vice yes yes but we are talking

43:16 about ourselves yeah ourselves yeah that was the positioning of and and talk about ourselves news that matters talking about real people what we called real people real news about real people and it was a niche nobody had and we said and we'll tell tell these stories throughout the day we don't have to tell them we'll be like a CNN we're not bound by the Kenyan we're not going to follow those rules of s n English English we're going to just go crazy and dismantle the whole thing which is what we did as soon as we launched it we started off with ordinary stories we started off with a story of these guys who cut trees in some Forest legally some story that had never ROM and shocked people because it was so interesting but people are just used to politicians and everything so and then we started news you know we launched today I think the next day citizen had

44:09 started doing news several times Nation also started now giving news headlines at 4 at 5 yet before that it was 1 7 and 9 they immediately started having news different news headlines at different times of the day the power of questioning so that is the position that we came up and it caught on and suddenly the content of news turned around suddenly a guy in you know Kario was making news we got stories of a guy who was you know doing something ordinary and something happened to him it became news before that it was never news wow what was news was politicians and big guys yes now ordinary people began to make news and that's what it is today cuz people want to read about themselves they want to know yes you know the only time ordinary people made news in those days is if there was a horrible murder somewhere and then you didn't even feature the guys it was so

45:04 and so somebody has been murdered somewhere and that was a section of crime remember it was politician business news crime crime desk you know that crime desk says so and so we make news everybody makes news ordinary people make news yeah and that's that was a position of K24 wow yeah so this this um the CNN contact you made um he gave you some guidance no he came with his team they're the ones who launched K24 what he came here with a team a fantastic team you know when you talk about professionalism yes you see it I mean Jeff coang you know the work ethic that they have that's why Jeff coang has that work ethic these people work from morning not of this African thing of the until the job is done until the job is done he flew in we flew in somebody from India to come and do the studio lights M the guy landed at at Kenyata jka yeah we picked him up he

46:04 came straight to the office all he had asked is we get him an an assistant and an electrician okay the team was waiting for him in the you know we in Long place yes he went straight to the studio started working cutting these big bars you know the studio bars for wiring yeah one week 7 Days exactly took him the lights of course had been shipped we bought them from India cuz they were half price of what from the us somewhere else yes he worked every we got him a hotel he'd come in early in the morning work all day we'd bring him lunch until evening go to bed start again 7 Days the whole studio grid lighting grid was done left the studio we got him a driver went to the airport and flew out wow that's how these people work the team from the US came in they had the there was a group of journalists one of them I think today works for Al several of them they work

47:03 for international companies now um I see them they came to train they call them the visioners they said in Kenya before our before K24 you used to have cameramen who just did camera work then you had editors who had little cubicles so the camera person would take the yes then the editor would sit and then there was a writer and what nonsense he said no teach these kids first of all get bright kids and get and to get employed in these other stations you had to have done journalism or something the CNN guy said no get anybody a lawyer Ken be jungu came he did law get people from people who've done medicine law any profession yes then teach them teach them how to shoot teach them how to edit teach them how to script so one person goes out shoots takes because he's going to edit it so he'll shoot it knowing he's got a picture in his head what this

48:02 how he going to be edited yes come back to the computer because you know G other the days where people you know remember the old editing yes you're doing everything with sofware digitally with software get there edit your story and voice it nice but you have an editor overseeing of course your content first of all you located you have somebody overseeing the quality and the caliber and that's what they did they taught these kids how to shoot angles the kids would go out with their cameras and this team from CNN would go out with them do stories about people logging trees or mama tumba or whatever come to the studio they everybody had to learn how to edit even today of my young people at the office they know how to edit they know how to shoot they know how to script then script and then voice it wow so it's complete so when you look at all the

48:52 stations today all their top people were trained by K24 wow they can jungus SMI the one who was at Nation all this Andi all they were they all came from many of them or most of them the top performers came from K24 because they were trained so the key thing is people I always say get the right material and that's what his name is Kent he still writes yes he says you get the right material it's like anything you get the fine wood then you can carve something out of it yes it doesn't matter they don't have to be trained in journalism they just have to have a passion for it for storytelling after all what is journalism he's telling story yes so they want to tell a story we got people who did agriculture one of them I see him now he's a very successful farmer he just did stories get them let them know how to tell those stories about the profession they

49:44 passionate about excellent and you get excellent people wow so you your impact hey we should uh document your impact Rose your impact is even greater than I thought okay no it's the people people M no excellent excellent and you have I I'm even baffled at how far reaching it is that you but you have now kame kame has become you you revolutionized and I think it's fair to use the word revolution because you revolutionized radio by going rural everyone's now talking about Ral rural stories um you then come and do the same for TV change a new way of or t teach people a new way of telling stor and I think your story speaks to the potential this country has because it's like we have this fertile medium in the people or the caliber of people we have and then you feed them the the lessons and the teachings and everything they Thrive they take off

50:44 imagine what that if done on a national scale what what we be talking about but now I want before we I to I want to wrap up about K so that can proceed to the now where we are okay but you're not in K now I'm not because we launched K24 and I remember sitting with this K event the CNN team was still here and we had to choose a launch date because he says when you launch either you can go by like a ship in the night nobody knows you're there and how do you launch a new station in a market that has Giants remember you have Nation you have standard you have C citizen big boys yeah whatever concept you come up with who's going to watch because you're competing with the big guys so we had to time it and so we decided let's time it with the elections 2007 elections because you know how Kenyans are obsessed with politics yes if you time it at for the with the elections and

51:38 then you are giving news all day and you are covering your politicians everywhere because remember all we are doing is giving news other people are running other programs yes you'll get viewers because suddenly people don't have to yeah they can so we timed our launch with the 20 7 elections okay so our launch party was 24th November 2007 yes start December 1st we are out there launching MH cuz you need the whole the elections were 30th December remember last month yes yes so we are getting all our bits making sure the transmitter is working the signal is going to loru you know all the ups and downs when you launch it so the first I remember when we first launched the signal wasn't going to loru Eric Latif had to get all our programming onto our disc yes Drive to limuru feed it cuz you couldn't figure out the guys from C could not

52:30 figure out why it's not everything was right you know our signal it's going but we can't reach it you know what had happened the coil that was supposed to come to us had gone to Uganda and we had been given the wrong the supplier who had supplied so people did not know that the first few two weeks we were not we looked live but we were not you not every day still remember that he drive to loru as they tried to figure out what the problem was but they've sorted it out so come the elections I remember sitting in my office the CNN this can't even was sitting next to me we are waiting for the elections to be announced can I remember Jeff Kang had done two stories one story was Raa odinga has won the elections and you so we've done his whole background the other one is K Kaki has been reelect so we wait and he kept walking in you know

53:22 Jeff when which story are we running are we running with the r or k we said we're waiting for K you know this kicc and then it's getting dark it's getting dark you know the rest of it is history so what happened they announced kibaki so we said okay we're going with the kibaki story because you know you have to have both so we went on air the next thing the editor John wend comes into my office and says Rose there's trouble there's fire our team has been attacked in kber and you know these are young kids with cameras brand new cameras tripods they had been attacked the camera has been smashed their shoulder is smashed some kids all over there was fire there was trouble so our worry of course were the safety of our children our kids so we said get them back in get them back we didn't know what was happening there's fire in kber there's fire I don't know here so we got people

54:13 spent the night in the office that 31st December whoa so of course fast forward there was trouble everywhere we had teams all over covering this chaos in Kara and the problem was every we had to worry about the tribe of the team so we'd ask we hadn't checked that before we'd Ask a kid are you Kiku what are you cuz if you are you have not building your company based on that yeah but covering stories you have to send them for their own safety remember Jeff Kang went to kav kamb chur we had to get him a whole security team to go with him we had to hire cars for him to go and Report the story from the site remember he was at kambar church so what happened was here we are covering all this horrible stuff that was happening the violence so our costs are going this way because we have to hire security cars drivers the right tribe drivers but no

55:07 income so there's no advertising nothing so we start off this station so we got viewership but we had no income so after 6 months our we're operating from an overdraft our overdraft was getting deeper and deeper our coverage our costs were getting higher and higher our viewership of course was high because now we are showing news all day people are watching who's getting killed coffee and an is in town you know all that stuff so to cut a long story short I remember the bank coming to me and saying well Rose you're in a you're in a hole you're in a hole show me the money show me the money or get out and that's it that's it that's it oh wow yeah so you build what you learn what I have learned because everything has a lesson is always always have a worst case scenario it never for the wildest in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that 2007

56:05 can happen there was never um worst case scenario in my mind you know we said you know that entrepreneurs are very optimistic yes we that's the only way you can keep going we always think oh it's just going to be but be realistic yeah the one lesson I've learned is today everything may be fine what if it blows up tomorrow what even today every time I wake up every day I say I know what happened to me with Kam after investing all that after investing in K24 and walking out with nothing yes nothing zero yeah I had not had I planned on the worst case scenario as soon as the fire started burning I should have shut it down yeah but I didn't shut it down because I'm optimistic yes everybody said oh coffee and it's going to be back to normal oh we'll have a you know our time so let's get let's borrow some more let's get deeper and deeper in the hole

57:01 it's going to be no no always every day wake up and say had I cut it off had I shut it down CU there was nothing wrong with Kam K was doing well and Kam radio has no expense I mean they are minimal expenses for radio compared to TV TV TV just guzzles cuz you have cars you have reporters you have equipment you have it's just takes in the money while kame was healthy and the overheads of our station microphone you know people it's a people yeah so had I shut it down but you can't stop being optimistic even today you know here I am being Optimist I'm always optim about and don't lose that you're a dreamer yeah you're a dreamer you have to keep saying yeah but now maybe to wrap up with h we now see you on YouTube and you are talking about a whole host of things maybe you can tell us about this new phase and what you're going through and what you're doing uh in this in that space yeah okay

58:02 everything evolves yes now there's a new medium you see people come to me and even then people would come to me and tell me I've got a r radio license I want to run you know launch a TV station you must always evolve with the time you must change you must adapt today you don't need to have your own radio license radio a radio license or a TV license CU everybody's running a radio station from their house yes everybody's running a TV station from their phone so um you you can reach a lot more people you don't have to go through cck um that whole new it's now it's an information age it's about exchanging information there's so much in me that I want to give to share and the one thing that is always been my passion from when I from K is at the foundation of everything every house has a foundation and before you for this house to stand you must the deeper the foundation the

58:52 harder the stronger this building will be like roots of a tree and these are values values are what build a Nation values are what build an economy people think Japan is ahead because they what Oriental or the us or Europe it's the values it's the values and those are the foundation of any society they are the foundation for economic Prosperity if you don't have your basic values you're not going to grow as a country economically and it's been proven over time if we don't want to learn from other nations look across look at Ronda yes completely destroyed 30 years ago chopping each other's heads off in 30 years by reintroducing values values back and we had them it isn't like as a society we survived because even as children people were taught when you were very young how to behave what is important we told stories using animals the greedy hyena don't be greedy he

59:55 broke into half because he he wanted to chase that he just thought about himself the hair the rabbit that thought he's so cool he can you know beat up every turtoise you know the the the value in being persistent in being focused yes you know and we were taught through animal stories through Moral Stories and then what happened we threw out the baby with a bath water colonialism comes we are told oh your culture is whatever you have no values you have nothing so we throw all that out and we Tred to copy the muungu but just copy what we see we don't copy The Roots true they they come from societies that are built on FAL value driven societies but we don't have so today the guy we admire most is the one who is the thief the biggest Thief no values is the one who will invite to sit at the front of the church I remember when I was a child my father

1:00:50 driving we driving to school and him pointing out at a house on seona you know after Club on the left very in those days because there weren't big houses just but there was this big house out of nowhere with white and him saying you know the man who built that house Stone he's a thief he's a stone and the contempt he had on his face and it was in primary school we were going to school and I remember recoiling at this that's not something to be admired he's a thief and he's built that white but it was a house just standing by itself and the the way he said it you know because cuz my father was a very principal very and of course it's a time where people today say oh you are in government for many years and you didn't come out with us yeah you're a you're a fool because you didn't steal you know that type of so once you have a society like that you cannot Prosper you cannot

1:01:43 grow and that's what I want to talk about wow H our time is up and I feel like we've just started uh this one we definitely have to do another session of um but uh maybe you can tell us where we can find this uh etiquette it's on YouTube the handle on Tik Tok um so that I think you can tell the audience where they can find you so that they can connect and we start and then I'll definitely have you back to continue this to especially the especially that Val values peace what we are telling people is we must ReDiscover the fundamental values that we were taught When We Were Young we we knew it our parents knew it our grandparents we need to go back to what we learned and I talk about this on YouTube on I'm on Tik Tok the handle is Rose Kimo etiquette and we are launching an online school of etiquette so anybody can enroll online uh from the beginning of March you can

1:02:43 go to Ros kimoo training at thre stones.tv and enroll for an etiquette course and we cover Basics basic Behavior down to even dressing yes you have seen how young people today dress just basic decency how do you treat people with respect with dignity because human beings every human being deserves dignity it's not a matter of position just because he's an ascari or he's a driver he's a human being and we start with respect consideration and empathy for each other then we can build this country to be prosperous excellent yes uh what a fabulous episode uh Rose kimoo thank you thank you very much for this conversation which is incomplete we have to to reschedule uh but enjoyed lar a lot and the story of how you built this entities into what are really entities that espouse African Excellence is phenomenal so ladies and gentlemen thank you very much for joining us in episode

1:03:44 12 of the African do podcast and we look forward to having with you us in the future [Music]