At the recently held City People Awards for Excellence, in Lagos, a radio media company, MEGALETRICS was honoured with the Radio Company of the Year Award.
Megaletrics is one of the most w ell-diversified radio stations in Nigeria with 4 different stations in its group made up of Beat FM, Classic FM, Naija FM, Lagos Talks and recently Megaletrics expanded to the UK and opened stations in Port-Harcourt and Abuja. It is a strong resource based organization with a gifted workforce geared towards swift delivery and turnaround of projects, their watchword has always been to develop unequal work ethnics in broadcast industry. It w as for the remarkable performance of Megaletrics that City People honoured Megaletrics, two Sundays ago.
After the event, City People Publisher, Seye Kehinde interviewed the MD/CEO of Megaletrics, Chris Ubosi who is a veteran broadcaster, on the success secrets of his company and the recent expansion the radio company has witnessed in recent times.
Let me congratulate Megaletrics on the growth and expansion that the company has witnessed in terms of adding more radio stations to the stable. What explains the expansion?
We have been very fortunate, even though times are hard and difficult and the economy is in a down turn, and we are in a recession, we have been lucky and proud to have expanded to London we launched a year ago this week. We are making great strides in London. We are on our 4th or 5th award now. We are making an impact on pushing African or if you like Afro-Beat music as it were.
In Nigeria, we are presently testing in Port Harcourt. We have Classique FM on the 91.1 dial, the Beat FM on the 99.9 and Naija FM on 92.7 in Port Harcourt, so we should be fully on air in a couple of weeks.
In Abuja, we hope to start Beat FM on 94.3 and Classique FM 97.1 end of many this year. Also we started Lagos Talks 91.3 FM which is a talk radio station which speaks to the conversation list in all of us. This includes political awareness. We have really been very lucky.
How do all these stations fit into the larger picture?
It is all part of the plan. We have always planned to cater for the broad spectrum of listeners that we have identified in the country. So if you look at all our 4 brands, they speak to different people. And we are trying to take that across the country. So, now we are in Lagos, Ibadan, Port Harcourt, Abuja. We hope to do the East and the far North. We hope to do something in Awka or Enugu. And then we go to the South-South and then we go up North to Kano, Kaduna.
How can you expand Lagos Talks to other parts since it has Lagos in its name?
It can be expand. If it goes to Abuja it becomes Abuja Talks. If it goes to Port Harcourt, it will be Port Harcourt Talks. It is Talk Radio, it’s just about us having conversation about what is happening in the country.
When you look back did you ever think Radio will get to this stage at which we are now, in terms of Radio growth and development?
I would say we are developing, but we are not growing. There is a proliferation or radios but a lot of them are not really doing anything. They are not adding value. Many of them are owned by people who just strayed into the business. So they end up coming in muddling the waters and after 3 months they can’t pay salaries again. There is a lot of radio stations, but I don’t see the value being added. We all just feeding on the same market we are not expanding. I guess is will get better as we get older. I see people selling their radio stations to others who are more serious to buy them over. We are in that phase where we just have a lot of cacophony, but no real substance.
What is your rating of the level of professionalism? Has there been a drop?
It is the same thing. Fortunately, we have FRCN Training School which teaches the basics. But we still have to do our own in-house training. Go upstairs now and you will find the people from Port Harcourt there. These are the people who are supposed to be manning the Port Harcourt station. We have people from outside coming in to train them.
What has kept Chris Ubosi going?
The grace of God has kept me going and then a genuine love for the industry. I genuinely love broadcasting. I genuinely love the effect it has on people.
That is not to say I don’t do other things. I am Quantity Surveyor by training. I have a construction company. So, I am into construction. My construction company is still very, very active. I run a company called Mtech. We do value added services. I am the founder of that. We do Centron Energy Drink. We are their partners in Africa. I do quite a bit.
At what point did you discover your love for radio or broadcasting generally?
I will say that was when I was with Aim Consultants. Radio just keeps you young every day. Every day is a different day in Radio. There are new trends. And you meet new people. It keeps you young.
How has Chris been able to keep looking young and slim?
That is my wife’s input. She forces me to eat well and exercise. As much as it is an interesting job, it is quite stressful actually- the transmitter goes off, you are panicking, so many things can go wrong at any time.
So, how old is Megaletrics?
This is our 8th year. People think we are a lot older than that. What we have done in 8 years it has taken people 20 years to do. We have a plan. So we just follow the plan. We just have our KPLS. Once you meet your KPI, you just move on to the next one. I have a wonderful team of dedicated staff who are pushing in the same direction as I am.
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