EFFECTS OF MARKET CHALLENGER STRATEGIES ON PERFORMANCE OF VERNACULAR RADIO BROADCASTING FIRMS IN WESTERN KENYA

Abstract

In Kenya, Radio broadcasting firms have played positive roles in the development of democracy. In 2015 51% of Kenyans listened to radio as their main source of entertainment, beating any other medium. However, there has been a decline of 7.2% to 6.8% in the periods 2016, 2017, that may be attributed to the radio firms marketing strategies, particularly market challenger strategies yet empirical evidence on market challenger strategies is limited. The study focused on examining the effect of market challenger strategies on performance of vernacular radio broadcasting firms in western Kenya. The study adopted explanatory research design on 16 vernacular radio stations from the western region of Kenya covering the Nyanza and Western Counties. The study revealed that out of the five market challenger strategies used, frontal attack (β = 0.247, p<0.05); encirclement (β=0.531, p<0.05); bypass (β=0.131, p<0.05); and guerilla warfare (β=0.216, p<0.05), had positive and significant effects on the performance. However, flank attack had some minimal positive effects and was not a significant predictor of firm performance (β=0.060, p>0.05). The study concluded that, market challenger strategies impact positively and significantly on the performance of vernacular radio broadcasting firms in western Kenya and that variations in the five strategies could occasion a variation of up to 81.4% in the performance of the vernacular radio broadcasting.