Radio host Stephan Komduur invited me to be his guest on De Wereld van BNNVARA radio programme, which was aired last Sunday evening from 8pm to 10pm. During the first hour, we touched on several subjects, one of them being my trip to Saint-Louis earlier this year. If you understand Dutch, you can check out a visual radio fragment below.
Radio
Corona in Kenya: why Nairobi is in lockdown once again
Many countries are gradually relaxing their COVID19 measures as vaccins are rolled out. But even as the first Kenyans are receiving ‘the jab’, president Kenyatta announced tighter corona measures to control a third wave. What’s going on in Kenya? I talked about this with NPO Radio 1 host Stephan Komduur in BNNVARA’s foreign news programme ‘De Wereld van BNNVARA’. You can check out the 18 minute conversation by clicking on this link.
Samsam & Media: Simantoi (9) loves to listen to the radio
For the newest edition of Samsam Magazine, I interviewed Simantoi (9) from Maralal! As this edition’s theme of the magazine for schoolchildren in The Netherlands is ‘Media’, I asked Simantoi how she knows what’s going on in the world. She told me that because she is from Samburu, a region in Kenya, that she listens to radio a lot. Not only because they play songs in ‘Maa’, the language of her grandparents, but also because she likes to listen to radioshows about Samburu’s mythology.
“My favorite radio station is Serian FM,” Simantoi says. “They broadcast a lot of nice programmes, so I listen to them at least for an hour each day.” On Saturdays, the radio station makes a programma that like children’s magazine Samsam, is only meant for children. Children even come to the studio, which sits on one of Maralal’s hills. Together with Simantoi, I traveled to see Joseph and Nick, who explained us a bit more about the importance of radio in Samburu.
To read the whole piece (in Dutch), enlarge the picture below or follow this link to Samsam’s website.
De Nieuws BV op TV: the first hybrid radio/TV show of NPO Radio 1
Before I left for Kenya, we talked and daydreamed a lot about this concept at my previous employer, NPO Radio 1. But now it is finally here: BNNVARA programme ‘De Nieuws BV’ is the first hybrid Radio 1 show to be broadcasted on both radio and TV (NPO2) at the same time. The broadcasts were already visible on the regular channel of NPO Radio 1, and it looks very good.
The idea behind all of this was simple: talk shows on TV are actually nothing more than beautifully aired radio talkshows, and so you could easily turn a radio talkshow into a TV broadcast. Technically it is slightly more complicated, but there are many possibilities at hand.
The idea of broadcasting "radio on TV" simultaneously has been around for a long time - that’s what I learnt when I started doing more research for De Nieuws BV and later as an online coordinator at Radio 1. I found the best example with our ‘southern neighbors’, the Belgians, where broadcasts are made on both RTBF and La Une.
Just like in Hilversum, there were some major struggles at the Walloon broadcaster. There were claims that “the magic of radio” would disappear, for example (which is largely nonsense, according to my graduation research on 'visual radio'). All struggles and difficulties aside, I think it’s great that a Dutch broadcaster like BNNVARA finally dares to make a move towards a hybrid radio and TV programme, and I’m sure many more NPO Radio 1 shows will follow De Nieuws BV’s lead.
Click here to read more about visual radio, or click here to read more about the work I did at NPO Radio 1.
NPO Radio 1 interview: how's life in Kenya?
Almost half a year ago, Dutch radio host Thomas van Vliet called me to ask me some questions about my stay in Kenya. This morning in his radio show 'Fris!', he invited me on his programme to get an update: which parts of Eastern Africa have I visited in the last couple of months? Do I like to chew khat by now? And what is it like to camp in the territory of wild Mount Kenya elephants? I answer all these (and some more) questions in the 15 minute interview - you can listen to the conversation (in Dutch) via this link.
An NPO Radio 1 interview about Nairobi
Radio host Thomas van Vliet asked me some questions about Kenya this morning, in his NPO Radio 1 show called 'Fris!'. We talked for about fifteen minutes about life in Nairobi, politics, photography, our flooded apartment and my work! You can listen to the interview through this link. For the non-Dutchies: NPO Radio 1 is the biggest news and sports radio station of The Netherlands, and also my previous employer. And so this interview is in Dutch as well.. Sorry about that!
The power of visual radio
At Dutch public radio station NPO Radio 1, I'm responsible for 'visual radio': the regular radio stream, but with added visuals. Apart from showing imagery and additional video footage, we capture what's happening in the radio station's studio. More and more, people are getting used to the fact that radio anno 2017 isn't audio only. That's also visible (no pun intended) if you take a look at this video column of comedian Pieter Derks, uploaded by Radio 1 programme De Nieuws BV. The small fragment has become a new milestone in the station's online history: it reached more than 6.5 million people.
Check out the viral video through the Nieuws BV Facebook page or NPO Radio 1 Facebook page.