By Dr. Innocent Nahabwe 

The internet is awash with comments about pay for our darling Media personalities ignited by Socialite Sheilla Gashumba’s post. Sheila decried the 50K she was apparently paid by NTV per show.

Whereas it’s a fact, it fails to put into context the realities on the ground. As you may know, I am a veteran of the media industry, having started out as a teenager, working for Orumuri and The Newvision in 1998.

A story was 1k for Orumuri and between 3K and 5K for New Vision at that time. Only page 1, 2 and 3 stories as well as features attracted a higher figure. In 2001, I joined Red Pepper, where I did everything from taking pictures, writing stories and editing sections of the paper.

At first, there was literally no salary. Pay was as and when money became available. Around 2002, salaries were introduced and I was paid 50,000 per month, paid in two instalments of 25,000 every fortnight.

I was at Campus by then and I looked forward to the pay day. Was it enough? No. Do I regret? Not at all. I know that this wasn’t the goal in itself but a stepping stone to where I wanted to be.

As the Red Pepper did better, pay improved. However, my biggest source of income at that time, came from advertising sales and other opportunities. Because I interacted a lot with corporate companies like MTN, Airtel, UBL, NBL while covering Miss Uganda and PAM Awards then, I developed a great working relationship with the CMOS and brand managers.

I, eventually, convinced them to give us adverts. I was paid at least 16.9% commission off these ads. The revenue grew exponentially and seeing what I was capable of, I was appointed advertising and marketing manager in 2005. I was in my 5th year pursuing Veterinary Medicine at Makerere University.

This saw me earn hundreds of times the 50K Sheila is talking about. As a young boy working for a newspaper that most loathed at the time, there was no way I could have met these people. Being a journalist helped me.

Even the jobs and business opportunities I got later like the huge discount on rent we got when Amnesia opened from Dr. Sudhir Ruparelia, were because we had met earlier. When I was taking pictures.

When the radio started, breaking through was very easy because I already knew many people. To use the parable of the farmer in Matthew 25:14-30, the 50K had been planted and multiplied several folds.

Around that time, we hustled and got paid the 50K or less around the same time. Those that planted their seeds properly, are now harvesting myriads of fruits. The likes of Belinda by then was at Sanyu FM with Dr. Mitch Egwang, Andrew Mwenda was writing for The Monitor as was Simon Kasyate.

All these personalities, have pivoted off to successful careers and are running successful businesses. Many PROs, Marketing managers, information managers you see in government and NGOs, were previously working on the same streets, holding those microphones and cameras.

My own people at Galaxy FM come in aware of this. We know that we can’t pay what they need. So we create opportunities to support them to drive their own projects, with our support to supplement their revenues.

DJ Nimrod has monthly and weekly events, Mr Mosh has quarterly events, Mariat, the morning show host has a vibrant Youtube channel and is doing well as an influencer and MC.

In addition to being voted the best Female presenter in the country, Prim is one of the most sought after social media influencer for brands and a great MC.

Can companies pay more? I don’t think it’s possible. This country is short of advertisers. If you remove herbalists and pastors, we are left with less than 20 serious advertisers that pay substantial marketing spends.

All the 250 radio stations, 39 TVs, about 7 newspapers, 40 online news outlets are looking at these 20 to survive. When the likes of Vodafone, Smart Telecom folded, UTL limped on, it left a huge gap. The likes of Azam TV, Zuku, Kwese came with huge promises but stuttered.

Advertising revenue has been dropping. Even the little is now being split between the media houses and Google (adwords) and Facebook which take money away from the country without paying the media houses.

I can bet my whopper that less than 20% of the media houses are making profit. The majority are simply limping on. Because of the competition in the sector, we undersold ourselves.

Prime time advertising on radios remains very low. Some radios are taking less than 20K for an advert. How many ads would you need to have enough to run a TV or radio station?

A TV ad in Kenya costs at least 1M UGX for 30sec at prime time. Here, the best they are doing is at 250,000 UGX. If advertising remains this low, there is no way we can pay our journalists better.

Lest I forget, as we push for higher pay, let’s not forget that wages remain low. Our president is being paid UGX 3.6M. Until recently, vets were being paid 400,000UGX per month.

That is 110 dollars a month for a scientist. Nurses were at 390,000UGX. The economy is narrow. The revenues are small across the board.

We need to, as we celebrate World Press Freedom Day and be awake to take the opportunities that the media presents. Let us stop looking at it as the ends in itself but a platform for the future.

The writer is the CEO of Galaxy FM Ltd and Bluecube Ltd Group