Bet You Didn’t Know About ‘Dira Ya Radio Citizen,’ The Most Popular Evening Radio Show

According to a recent survey by IPSOS done for the Kenya Advertising Research Foundation, ‘Dira ya Radio Citizen’ is the most watched show in the evening on radio. It is aired daily, starting from about 7pm. When it comes on, listenership to Radio Citizen spikes through the roof, leaving all the other radio stations in the dust. ‘Dira’ does not have a particular time line, but runs for about 30 minutes on average and is in Swahili.

Dira ya Radio citizen has many reporters stationed in different parts of Kenya. They go outside the country only when there are major news of interest to the Kenyan audience. The presenters for this programme are Josphat Odipo assisted at times by Jilani wa Mbura. Other reporters include Vincent Afande, June Dezina Vel and Lincoln Njogu.

The plot of the programme is that it is a ‘magazine news’ type of programme which highlights only the major occurrences in Kenya and around the world. It has the major news segment, sports segment, weather forecast (Utabiri wa hali ya anga). The last segment is a sponsored proverb section called ‘Busara ya Wahenga’. The proverb is normally in any native of their choice but is translated by the reader.

Many fm stations in Kenya do news coverage and presentations, but some do it superficially. However, Citizen Radio has reporters based almost in all places. There are some live feeds from reporters during some major occurrences, but this isn’t the case mostly. When compared to BBC however, Citizen Radio does a comprehensive coverage of news from different regions in Kenya. Music is used to develop the mood of the news segments. For example, music with a high tempo is used for the sports news.