Regional News of Thursday, 8 October 2020

Source: Nana Ofori, Contributor

Assin Fosu based Rich FM ranked first in Central region

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The Media Monitoring Group (MMG) has ranked, Rich FM, as the top radio station in the central region with the aggregate performance of 84% in its assessment of the Performance of Electronic Media in central region for the 3rd quarter (July-September) 2020.

Whiles Obrempong Fm in Agona Swedru emerges the second with 82% and Radio Peace in Winneba came third with 81.5% performance respectively. Mankessim based Kingdom Fm who topped the second quarter chart now falls at fourth position with 81%.

The station that emerged the second most leading radio station in the Central Region with a daily audience share of 80 percent within the immediate local area, and 95 percent of the surrounding environment in the second quarter, thus April - June ranking has since improved tremendously in their performance thus making them first in the third-quarter ranking. This ranking is based on listernship and marketability for the the third quarter, that is July-September 2020, in the Central region by the MMG.

The political atmosphere arising out of the 2020 general elections has seen most of the media houses in the region modifying their programs content to suit the political environment, this has however led to major changes in the performance of some Radio stations leaving the inactive ones down the ladder.

There was however a major improvement in the general performance of Radio stations in the region, this gives the group a sigh of relief that the region is gradually improving in radio broadcasting and catching up with its counterparts in other regions especially Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi.

This year’s assessment used the general aggregate performance in its assessment, thus combining both listenership within and outside the locality of the existence of the media outlet.

Media Monitoring Group is a non-profit media research organization based in Accra. The MMG seeks to assess the performance of both electronic and print media in the regions of Ghana.

Over the years much attention has been devoted to the major regions thus Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi media fraternity, the central region which happens to be a citadel of education and political activism is always left behind in media ranking.

The Greater Accra has seen the Peace FM, Joy FM, City FM, Angel FM, Asempa FM, Atinka FM, Class FM, Rainbow Radio, Radio XYZ, Ahotor FM, Accra FM, Power FM and etc making the headlines in terms of listenership base. Greater Kumasi can also talk of Nhyira, Hello, Angel FM, Ash FM, Capital Radio, Abusua FM, Wontumi Radio, Sumsum FM, Fox FM, Silver FM, Sikapa Radio, Oyerepa FM, Kessben FM and the likes always leading in quarterly assessment.

It is as a result of this that the focus has now been shifted to the central region to assess the rate of listenership base of every radio station in the region since the TV and print media is not well developed in the region.

According to the Award Scheme this “research will be undertaken quarterly and publication released to determine Radio Stations and how they are doing in the media fraternity in terms of listenership.

The research covers the period between July – September 2020. This third-quarter performance (results) indicates that there is a massive improvement of programs over the previous quarter.