The game of musical chairs is over in the mainstream media.
Big media houses like Royal Media Services, Nation Media Group and Mediamax Networks Limited have now relaxed their poaching spree from each other after a marathon that has been going on in the past two months.
The media houses have been seeking to reposition themselves by bringing on board the top and popular on-air talents with an ultimate goal of winning advertisers to their respective sides.
With shrinking advertising revenues in the wake of digital media, the mainstream media houses have had it rough in the past few years and what remains is the survival for the fittest.
However, what is of concern is the rate at which these media houses have been recycling old talents at the expense of thousands of fresh graduates leaving media colleges and universities every year.
The poached talents are known to be 'acquired' at heavy 'prices' that could employ a bunch of fresh graduates. But who cares? After all, what the media bosses say is that they want to see value for their money which can only be realised through experienced talents, not struggling 'non-starters'.
But where does this leave new graduates? Well, the options are limited. For instance, one can decide to 'wear' a black suit and 'mourn' forever that there are no jobs in the media sector as if anybody cares.
Alternatively, one can decide to rise to the occasion and for example freelance for the emerging online media platforms like this one (Hivisasa.com) and earn a living from it. The future of media in Kenya and elsewhere is online.
Even the mainstream media have realised this, the reason why Standard Media Group runs Standard Digital, Nation Media Group has Nairobi News, Royal Media Services has E-Daily, Radio Africa Group has Mpasho, all of which are gossip sites meant to compete in the blogosphere.
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