Journalism and Publicity - Essay Example

To ensure that it effectively reaches out to its target audiences MTV Base broadcasts, music that the target audience can relate to or rather understand, for instance, in South Africa the channel will air music either in English or Zulu which is a predominant indigenous language there. In Nigeria, it will broadcast music in English or Igbo as these are the traditional languages there. In the East Africa region, the standard music that is played is either in English or Swahili with Buganda being common in Uganda (Haig, 2007).

Culture is yet another aspect that is commonly emphasized to ensure the target audiences get programs or rather music that they can relate. Case in point the Afro genre of music is predominant in Nigeria thus a significant amount of airplay will be dedicated to artists from that genre likewise in South Africa Kwaito is the type of music that aligns with the local culture thus it will receive massive airplay than any other type in that country. That notwithstanding, the interest of the audience plays a significant role in determining the kind of programs that are aired, for instance the Hip-hop genre of music that is Western by origin and cultures tends to have a huge following in Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania thus the program airs this kind of music to appease the interests of the people that are huge followers of that genre (McLeod and Kuenzli, 2011).

Free to air channels can be accessed by the general public without any form of subscriptions thus they entirely depend on the commercials that they run to foot their bills. I’ll choose NTV in Kenya as an example of a free to air channel for the purpose of this analysis. Evidently, most free to air channels have a substantial fan base given the fact that they can be accessed without paying any amount of money (Cramerotti, 2009). These channels tend to come up with all sorts of innovative programs so as to command a huge following to entice more companies to advertising with them based on the fact that they have a vast audience.