Media buyers are being forced back to the drawing board as the radio tilts consumer numbers in favour of the rural folk, a new study shows.

The study by the Steadman Group found that unlike the past when advertisers concentrated on the five per cent of Kenyans, classified as belonging to the class of the rich, and the 17 per cent that constitute the middle class, vernacular radio stations are bringing to the market area specific audiences forcing a division of the revenues.

The Kenya Audience Research 2008 by the Steadman Group indicates that the pattern of affluence, as measured by access to products and services, is in step with the country's map of inequality has in the past not only been the main determinant of advertising spend but also government policies.

The survey that mainly involved leading advertisers, media owners and advertising agencies found that the poor, who constitute the largest segment of the population and have become big consumers of the media, are only getting token attention from product and service providers.

Most media buyers have remained focused on Nairobi, the country's richest province and the most affluent while North Eastern, the poorest and the least affluent gets the least attention - culminating into a rugged landscape of affluence.

"In a country like Kenya where government policy is usually geared to poverty reduction, we expect that the melting down of the mountains of poverty in future studies will serve to measure the success of such policies," said Mr George Waititu, the group managing director of the Steadman Group, at a Press briefing yesterday.

The findings also put an important instrument in the hands of companies and advertisers to measure the return on investment they make in advertising expenditure that has been growing steadily over the past five years.

"It should enable companies to plan their media expenditure more efficiently and segment media in the same way they segment their brands," said Mr George Lutta, the chairman of Karf Technical Committee. "Different brands can be advertised on different media channels depending on the niche they are able to reach," he said.

Advertising expenditure has steadily grown, in the past four years tripling from Sh6.6 billion in 2003 to Sh17.4 billion last year. This growth has mainly been attributed to the proliferation of media channels especially the radio.

Growth of the radio itself as medium of communication has itself been driven by the increase in the number of vernacular stations.

Radio stations with national reach have been overshadowed by regionally-focused vernacular stations.

"Radio stations with national reach have been overshadowed by regionally-focused vernacular stations," Mr Waititu said. "Our research has identified 16 homogenous regions with local stations that popular and unique to each region and are not present in any other region," he said.

The popularity of vernacular stations is attributed to the fact that 81 per cent of Kenyans aged 15 years and above use vernacular as their main mode of communication at home. The figure is even higher in rural areas where 89 per cent of people speak vernacular compared to 52 per cent in urban areas.

This changing media landscape is slowly tilting the ground on the way advertising is bought and sold as media buyers look to maximize their returns.

As they win more listeners, vernacular radio stations, which most advertisers have ignored because previous audience research failed to capture media consumption of rural folks, are expected to expand their share of the advertising revenue.

Only 38 per cent of radio advertising goes to vernacular stations despite the fact that they now control more than half of the listenership.

While broadcasters have traditionally aimed for wider penetration to attract more advertising revenue by selling high audience numbers, the changing media landscape is making this strategy less relevant forcing advertisers to spread their money among more media channels to reach a national audience.

"It is more efficient for advertisers to reach consumers using these vernacular stations but because they are so many, this has made media more expensive overall," said Mr Waititu.

Other key findings of the study were that while 89 per cent of households own radio sets penetration of TV is much lower at 38 per cent.

This translates to 7.5 million households with radio sets compared to 3.2 million households with TV sets nationally.

But despite the lower penetration of TV in rural areas - 29 per cent of households own a TV compared to 68 per cent in urban areas - there are more households with TV sets in rural areas (1.8 million) while 1.4 million urban households have TV sets.

Radio has continued its tradition of having the highest reach with 79 per cent of Kenyans tuning in to radio daily. 39 per cent watch TV daily compared to 23 per cent who read a newspaper daily.

This translates to 16.7 million people that listen to radio daily compared to 8.2 million who watch TV and 4.9 million who read a newspaper daily. While the gap between those who listen to radio in urban and rural areas is only 10 per cent, the gap widens for both TV and newspapers.