Working together, BBC Media Action and the Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) have transformed a shabby studio into a HD home for KBC’s flagship politics programme, Beyond the Headlines.

I think it’s fair to say that the development community has a tendency to overuse the ‘p’ word. I’ve seen it used to describe a variety of relationships, however slender or remote. My experience of working with Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) over the last few years would suggest that occasionally, these relationships earn the description of a true partnership.

We had worked with KBC for two seasons, when they broadcast BBC Sema Kenya, a groundbreaking political debate show which helped people ask their leaders questions, and in doing so, help hold them to account. During this collaboration, staff at KBC benefited from exposure to new production techniques, among them, moderating debates and developing compelling scripts.

Both sides felt that if our capacity strengthening was to come to fruition KBC should produce their own show. One year later, and without fanfare, the first show Beyond the Headlines aired on KBC Channel 1.

The new programme isn’t Sema Kenya and was never intended to be. It is KBC’s own flagship politics show designed to help audiences understand some of the key issues behind the stories which make the headlines. During the month of pilot programmes the show’s producers demonstrated they weren’t afraid of tackling sensitive content. Themes included corruption, police reforms and security one year on from the Garissa attack where 148 people died after gunmen stormed a university in northern Kenya.

A studio fit for purpose

As exciting as the pilot was, we quickly realised the show would need a permanent home. The one suitable studio at KBC was already operating beyond capacity. So we had no choice but to look again at a scruffy former radio studio, home to an increasingly decrepit piano and little else. It didn’t even have mains power. Engineers who had been at KBC for decades couldn’t tell me when it was last used as a studio – instead of its usual guise as a makeshift staff chapel.

It was going to be a considerable undertaking to turn this shabby space into something that could house a live show. A broadcast engineering consultant provided me with schematics for video, talkback, sound and data. It was a blizzard of wiring, converters and electrical engineering. I hoped if I stared at the diagrams long enough a picture of a studio would appear.

Sparking a national conversation

The consultant gave me a long list of work which KBC had to undertake: everything from installing air conditioning and power to fitting a carpet.

Throughout the whole nerve-racking period, KBC upheld their side of agreement and contributed significant time, manpower and funds. As a result, a long- neglected corner of the KBC buildings is now their first HD studio.

I’m happy KBC has a new show to help spark a national conversation about politics in the run-up to Kenya’s elections in 2017, and that we have a partnership that matters.

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It’s been a significant few months for the “Any Questions” style TV and Radio show Sema Kenya. As Senior Production Manager Jackie Christie explains in her last post, after three years and over 80 episodes later, the team behind the show is handing over production to the Kenyan state broadcaster, KBC. For those of us working in BBC Media Action’s Research and Learning team, this presents an opportunity to reflect the programme’s impact.

 

Researchers in London and Nairobi have been working since the creation of Sema Kenya not only to ensure that it remained relevant and appealing to audiences, but also to assess the programme’s impact on governance in Kenya.

 

Sema Kenya has had a clear purpose from its inception: to create a national conversation on democratic processes in Kenya, supporting accountability and increasing people’s knowledge of key governance issues, focusing on matters our audiences have said are most important to them, including unemployment, security, education and the high cost of living.

 

Our research conducted in 2013 suggests that, through its locally driven programming and a format based on constructive moderated discussion, Sema Kenya was able to make a distinct contribution at election time. This was delivered by presenting a diversity of topics, views and dialogue at a time when a majority of Kenyan media maintained a narrow election focus aimed at “keeping the peace” by avoiding sensitive issues such as ethnicity and land - key topics perceived to have contributed to the post-election violence in 2008.

Improving knowledge

Our findings show media can have a constructive and meaningful role even in challenging contexts. However there were other key questions we wanted to answer, such as the extent to which Sema Kenya contributed to increasing audiences’ knowledge on key governance issues. The same study, which included a nationally representative survey of the population aged 15 and above, showed that the vast majority (93%) who listened or watched the programme regularly (at least every other week) thought that Sema Kenya improved their understanding of key governance issues. But we wanted to go further to determine if the increase in knowledge was associated with the programme or with, for example, an already existing interest in politics amongst those audiences or level of education.

To be able to answer this question, we created a scale of knowledge based on four main governance themes that the programme tackled: unemployment, security, implications of the new constitution and implementation of the devolution. We looked at whether people who watched or listened to the programme regularly were also showing higher levels of knowledge, even when taking into account their gender, level of education, purchasing power, interest in politics or group membership amongst other factors.

Our analysis showed that regular exposure to Sema Kenya was indeed associated with an increase in knowledge of governance, while controlling for other factors. This is an important finding because it shows Sema Kenya had successfully achieved its key objective of encouraging dialogue and improving knowledge on the democratic processes affecting Kenyans, a feat especially significant in the context of constitutional changes in the way Kenya was governed from 2010.

What about accountability?

The evidence so far suggests that Sema Kenya has contributed to facilitating a national conversation about the key issues affecting Kenyans and to improving knowledge on key governance issues. But what about accountability?

The majority (94%) of Sema Kenya’s regular audiences agree that the programme has played a role in holding government to account. Our findings so far suggest that it has done so by empowering audiences to ask questions and by putting leaders’ answers and promises on the record. Jackie Christie’s latest blog post provides vivid and inspiring examples of the contribution of the show on accountability.

While we know the show’s impact on our regular audiences, how did the programme influence leaders? In Sema Kenya’s third season, the research team were busy interviewing decision-makers, government officials and local influencers. Getting access to these people isn’t an easy task but we wanted to better understand whether and how the programme may have played a role in driving demand for accountability, improving responsiveness, the transparency in decision-making and, ultimately, the service delivery to improve people’s lives.

Visit the BBC Media Action website for more research on Kenya or sign-up to our newsletter to keep up to date with the latest findings from BBC Media Action’s Research and Learning Team.

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