Sports on the Airwaves of Ho- Part 3

Sports on Kekeli 102.9 FM

Finally, the folks at the post office-based station have decided to do something about the coverage of sporting activities on the network. Hitherto, that area of the business has been a waterloo for the station which has chalked notable successes in other areas of the business.

If you are a fan of the morning show on Kekeli FM you would have noticed that the sports segment for some time now is produced and presented all the way from Accra via telephone by a gentleman by name Kelly Eli Ahor.

What seems initially as a temporary measure has almost taken roots on the station’s morning show.

That arrangement is not, in itself, a novelty in broadcasting because the sports segment of the popular Focus On Africa on the BBC is sometimes presented by Michael Oti Adjei and others from the BBC studios in Accra.

The only problem with the Kekeli FM is that the telephone connection to Accra sometimes becomes poor which makes it quite difficult to hear the information the guy is trying to put across.

The arrival of Christian Chibueze a.k.a. Mourinho at the station and the subsequent creation (or was it a revival?) of the sports news slot on Sizzla’s programme is a feather in the cap of the station. This new platform offers the station the opportunity to feed its listeners with updates on the day’s biggest developing stories in the arena of sports.

If this sports presentation business were a football match, this Mourinho guy would have qualified as ‘utility player’ because of his versatility in presenting in both Ewe and English (if my memory serves me right he was an English sports presenter at Kuul FM).

His flow in Ewe sports news casting makes one wonder where he got the surname which sounds so Nigerian from when people like us with Ewe names like Atsu struggle to even read the Ewe Bible fluently.

His moderating skills have also not been in doubt whenever he is in charge of the newly created Saturday morning sports review show. Sports coverage on Kekeli FM is set to get even better with the ‘foreign-based professional’ (Kelly Eli Ahor) on the morning slot and the ‘home-based professional’ (Mourinho) holding the forte for them in the afternoons and on Saturday mornings.

Sports on Kuul 103.5 FM

If my memory serves me right (yeah, it failed me a couple of times in the past), sports on Kuul FM started with the versatile Christian Chibueze, also known as Mourinho, firmly in charge until he abandoned them and resurfaced much later at Kekeli FM to do the Ewe version of what he was doing on Kuul FM. Well, as the saying goes “one man’s poison is another man’s meat”. So, in his absence, another young man, Caleb Delanyo Avexo (who does almost all other things at the station) stepped in and it has been a jolly good ride for him ever since.

If you ever heard of my ‘lone ranger’ concept of sports presenting on the airwaves of Ho then meet the ‘lone ranger’ on Kuul FM as far as sports news presenting is concerned.

Apart from a couple of times when he mixed up his pre-arranged scripts on air and his subsequent ‘battles’ to adjust to that awful situation on air the young dude, who also doubles as the host of the station’s mid morning show, has managed (with the help of his producers) to build credible sports programmes for the station. I was forced to chip in the team of producers bit because sometimes l wonder how someone who hosts ‘Kuul Express’ which ends at 12pm turns around to present sports news on their major news twenty minutes later. Guess, that’s where the producers come in handy.

For now, there are two daily shows on Kuul FM; one on the morning show and an update on the major news at noon. There is also a sports review show on Wednesday evenings. Kuul FM seems to have gotten the sports side of the business also going well for them currently with the lone presenter cum Disc Jockey and technician, Caleb Delanyo Avexo, in charge.

But buddy, next time you are coming on air make sure you get something (maybe, super glue) to fasten your pre-arranged scripts together to save yourself from all those embarrassing moments you’ve gone through in the past, or should l send you a nail and a hammer instead?


Sports on Hope 93.1 FM

Hope FM have had a few presenters in the past manning the sports affairs of the station’s programmes. The main sports programme (aside the updates on Citi News) currently airs at 6:30 am after the Citi Breakfast News on week days. I am yet to listen to any other sports programme on the network even on the sports-packed Saturday mornings and afternoons.

Currently, the station has its own ‘lone ranger’ in the person of Nana Ansah Asare, who comes as and when he is available to give listeners their daily dose of sports news in the mornings. Guess the team is satisfied with the updates which come on the Citi News packages they air three times a day. But in a market where the other stations are competing for the attention of listeners with an unprecedented coverage of the local Divisions Two and Three leagues in the region, Nana’s appearance in the mornings only may not be enough to cover all these leagues and the others dotted across the world. In any case, he seems to be in the studio most times as the producer of most of the station’s programmes.

All the radio stations in Ho have stepped up their games in the area of covering the local Divisions Two and Three leagues and these have propelled the interest of most listeners in the various teams participating in these leagues. At least, now we know the names of the teams in our local divisions and the braggarts who manage them. Guess it is time to know the names of some of the promising players too.

At the time of putting together this piece Tosh FM has stopped all forms of sports programming. Seems the exit of one of the most promising sports presenters in this region, Randy Edudzi, from the station is now taking its toll on Tosh FM, or maybe, they have decided to be the ‘Hitz FM’ of Ho. Where is that Randy guy anyway? I heard him briefly (for about a week) on Kekeli FM and then he disappeared into thin air just like that.