Larry Madowo Fires Shots at NTV’s Competitors. The will Definitely Ruffle A Lot of Feathers

You know him as the host of ‘The Trend’ on NTV, a show that has captured the heart of Nairobi with its controversial host, fascinating topics and interesting guests.

But away from The Trend Larry also dabbles in writing and often pours his thoughts in the  Front Row Column on the Daily Nation . Today’s topic tackles a serious issue ‘the copy-cating culture ‘that plagues us.

Even the introduction to the article on Facebook hints that the contents will be juicy as Larry Writes “I called out our competitors for blatant copy pasting and killing creativity. But my editors removed the names and softened the sting. My DAILY NATION ‪#‎FrontRow‬ column today.”

The article itself was quite a read .Here is an excerpt “We always assumed that people watched #theTrend to be ironic, considering how terrible a format it was. Nobody learned anything useful and we tried every possible way to get cancelled, including almost burning up the studio one time.

They rewarded our trainwreck of a show with an extra hour of airtime, maybe because it ran so late on Friday nights that none of our bosses had really every watched it!

Time well wasted, we say all the time and make no effort to do a serious show. So you can imagine our surprise when almost all the other TV stations in the country came up with their own versions of #theTrend, some on the same time slot and based on the same central idea.”

An article that has resonated well with A big part of the audience who had this to say :

2035 •

I agree with you on copy-cat. Just listen to how many radio stations have picked up on Classic FM’s garbage in the morning. See how many of the same TV shows we have. Formats are copied, presenters are changed. How many soaps will keep being produced in the name of “a new show”? I commend Mutua for that very tired show called Cobra Squad. It was horrible, but he moved in a different direction. Music, apes rap. All music is about clubbing, drinking, women, money and cars (which they probably don’t have or own). One person started lingala beats, everyone went there. Now everyone is a gospel singer. No identity there. Unlike Tz next door, where you’ll hear a song start and you’ll immediately know it’s a bongo track. Kenya has no creatives. Just copy-pasters.
Sawa, publish this one. I’ve been looking for an avenue to vent about this seeing that I’m also in the creative industry.
 Afrikanese
Thank you for saying what I have always wanted to say, but didn’t have the public forum to do so. No where in Kenya is the copy cat culture more common than in business. Witness the number of kiosks all peddling the same wares – phone accessories, perfumes, fake watches,
Lyserg • 18 hours ago
That whole garbage news of guys offering cows and what not should never have been published, at least by big media houses. That should have been left to tabloids otherwise it starts reinforcing some of the stereotypes about our people. There are serious issues to be discussed why give this platform to a bunch of perverts looking for attention.