Rivalry in radio must stop

The radio business in Ghana has eventually become one of the enviable jobs. Most young ones now look up to some radio personalities as their role models and mentors some due to the ways they carry themselves on radio and others just like their personal life styles behind the scenes.

One big question that keeps bothering the minds of many is “Why presenters do becomes enemies of their previous stations the moment they are “poached out” or leave for another station?

Management and board members of radio stations travel outside the capital and other urban centers to the “rural areas” to poach vibrant personalities into the big cities to work with yet they see nothing wrong with that but the moment a station in the city poach a presenter from a station in the city there is rivalry and hatred.

The poached presenter together with his or her new radio station becomes “great enemies” to the old work place. Some of these rivalries go to the extent of affecting friendships and relationships since some are restricted not to be seen in the premises of other stations.

Sometimes incentives given to workers during their working periods with the companies the moment they leave they are asked to pay back or be sent to court for legal battle. Are such things supposed to be going on among radio stations? Some station heads claim the moment you poach three and above people from their station it means they want the collapse of theirs and so they also never wish them well.

The print media together with the electronic media are suppose to work very hard to put the nation on its feet but yet when you are in the print and seem quiet close to any radio station they assume your loyalty has been bought by that station and so they declare you either an enemy or your reports not being credible.

One leaves a radio station for the other and can never go there as a brother or sister to the station. You go there and the reception you are given shows that you don’t belong there. At least that rivalry should be wiped away to make way for togetherness.

You can only see radio personalities and their heads from different stations together only when there is a funeral of a colleague aside that you never see them during their own organized programs. Those you see are either from their sister stations or affiliates across. Some also refuse to mention names of other stations on their network even when there is the need to do so.

This problem is not only going on in Accra but in all the regions that have radio stations located in them. We should all be each others keeper and love one another to make the radio business an enticing and enviable one.