QTV is A Unique E. African Offering and Not a Response to Aljazeera, NMG

Since when Nation Media started promoting the QTV idea on TV and Print, I have been interested in knowing what the content will be like. I have been trying to get in touch with the new GM of QTV, Betty Dindi, who wouldn’t speak much or the good old Emmanuel Juma who is doing lots of work at NTV.

So I just to talk to Anne Gitao,  Group Marketing Director at Nation Media. Its been long since I last saw Anne. 3 -4 years.

According to Anne, QTV is first not a response to Aljazeera’s intention to launch a local Swahili TV station though many might believe it is. QTV has been in the pipeline for the last 3 years and NMG got more energy to initiate the idea when they finished fighting the legal battles which were making it hard for NMG to launch QTV.

NMG has been having the second TV station which gets content from mostly e-TV but this is set to change as QTV has partnered with producers from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to have great content for the TV station targeting the middle and lower segments of TV consumers just like Q-FM does.

Second, QTV will not be so focused on news while Aljazeera’s yet to be launched Swahili TV station will mainly focus on news. The new TV station will look to develop and promote content from the great East Africa with a strong bias for Kenyan content. Anne says that Nation Media believes that there are great Swahili content which are not well promoted and appreciated. These are the contents which QTV will be focused on.

radio market is almost saturated in Kenya while the TV market is still young with not enough creative offerings out there. QTV might just appeal to advertisers targeting the middle and lower end of the market. This will be interesting.