Consumption of media content increased significantly during the COVID 19 period, the Status of the media report 2020 has found.
The report released on Friday 18th December 2020 found that 55 percent of those surveyed indicated that their media use has increased during the period of the pandemic.
This could be attributed to the fact that most people were working from home and the lockdown period. “55 percent of Kenyans had more time to read and listen to news and content due to Covid-19 restrictions” said Media Council of Kenya Chief Executive officer Mr. David Omwoyo.
Another reason is also as a result of the interest around information about the pandemic: “The statistics focused on the usage of media between March and June 2020, if we did the same survey now, we may find that the trends have changed, probably due to the fatigue around the subject,” said Walter Nyabundi from InfoTrack
The survey also found that confidence in the media remains high at 97 percent with television and radio being the most trusted sources of news standing at 74 percent in terms of popularity for both platforms. This was a slight increase for TV which ranked at 73 percent in 2019 and a drop for radio which was ranked at 84 percent last year: “The Media played a critical role in disseminating information during the COVID-19 pandemic.’ Said Mr Omwoyo
Social Media was the third most used platform with WhatsApp and Facebook being the most popular, used mostly for networking purposes followed by breaking news and entertainment.
Chairman of the Media Council Mr Maina Muiruri noted that the media industry in Kenya is currently in the middle of the adoption stages of online media and journalism, something which should be celebrated: “Digital disruption is the change that occurs when new digital technologies and business models affect the value proposition of existing goods and services. A truly free and independent media can play a critical role in disseminating the information needed by the public to make informed decisions regarding their lives”
For television platforms the survey found that Citizen TV was the most popular followed by NTV, KTN Home, KTN News and Inooro TV in that order.
In the radio category Citizen Radio was the most popular(19PC) followed by Radio Jambo(14PC) and Radio Maisha (10PC).
Although newspaper readership stood at 25 percent of those sampled, the rating had a marginal increasing of 2 percent from 2019. Daily Nation was the most read (47 pc) followed by The Standard (27 percent), Taifa Leo (8 percent) and the Star (4 percent).