By Prince Henderson
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| Audience Research Monitoring team with Staff of Radio Tuntufye |
The Social Communications Commission of the Episcopal Conference of Malawi has expressed satisfaction over the way Catholic media houses in the country have responded to the audience research training they underwent in August this year.
The National Communications Secretary, Fr. Godino Phokoso said this when he toured Radio Tigabane and Tuntufye FM of Mzuzu and Karonga dioceses respectively.
Fr. Phokoso said following the training that catholic media houses reporters went through, the media houses have recorded tremendous improvements and are now able to conduct research that informs them of their impact and progress in terms of audience and programming.
"The training that we went through is now bearing fruits. From our monitoring visit, things are moving on and by the end of this exercise our media houses should be able to compete in the market and produce content that is favourable to its listeners and viewers," said Fr Phokoso.
Fr. Andrew Kaufa who is part of the monitoring team said "Most of the findings from the research that the media houses have conducted are reflecting true picture of what is on the ground. It is able to tell how many listeners one particular media house has. This is important because in terms of marketing, they will be able to determine how many people are reached in an advert," said Fr. Kaufa. He also said that the outcome of the training was encouraging because many catholic media houses have conducted research that now informs the kind of programs they produce as it is able to suit the needs of their audience.
ECM Social Communications Commission is implementing Audience Research Training Project for Catholic Media Houses with funding from Stem Van Africa through Catholic Media Council (CAMECO).
The project involves Radio Maria Malawi, Radio Alinafe, Radio Tigabane, Tuntufye Fm, Luntha Television, Montfort Media and Likuni Press.