Nation Media Group owned NTV has cancelled a number of its popular live shows in a drastic change of strategy that will lead to a reduction of news content.
The changes which took effect on Monday morning are according to insiders meant to weed out ‘unpopular shows’ and replace them with what management feels the viewers want to watch.
This has caused panic at the 5th floor of the Nation Centre where NTV is domiciled. Some staff members fear they will soon be declared redundant as they will no longer be needed.
Some of the shows which have been taken off air include the week day morning show AM Live.
The show which was launched in June 2022 was meant to counter the dominance of other media houses such as Citizen TV, KTN News, and K24 TV, which have their own extensive morning shows.
AM Live covers different topics ranging from breaking news to developing stories and politics. It also features panel discussions and interviews with politicians and people who are leaders in their fields.
Other talk shows which are on the chopping block include ‘With All Due Respect’ which is hosted by James Smart every Tuesday night and Thursday night’s ‘Front And Centre’ hosted by Ben Kitili.
Swahili shows have also not been spared with ‘Kigoda Chako’ and ‘Gumzo La Sato’ hosted by Lofty Matambo and Fridah Mwaka being targeted.
The new changes will also affect the 1pm and 9pm news bulletins. Producers have been instructed to reduce the broadcast lengths of these two bulletins to 15 minutes at 1pm and 30 minutes at 9pm.
At the same time editors have been told to air exclusive stories at the 9pm news and not repeating what has been broadcasted the whole day on various forms of media.
