FIT, in conjunction with MESPT, worked with 2 Broadcasting houses; Royal Media Services and Nation Media Group to develop their capacity to avail Business Development Services to their listeners through radio programmes. The usefulness of these programmes to provide BDS was to result in higher number of listeners which would in return translate to increased advertiser revenues, thus making the programmes sustainable.

FIT, together with MESPT worked with four vernacular stations in the Royal Media Services and one from the Nation Media Group, to develop their capacity to provide Business Development Services to their audience, especially those in the Agricultural Value Chains, over various platforms. The four stations were Ramogi FM (Broadcasting in Western Kenya), Inooro FM (Central and Mount Kenya regions), Musyii FM (Eastern region), and Chamgei FM (North Rift valley Region), these four were from RMS; and QFM (Kiswahili Nationwide) from the Nation Media Group.

FIT with MESPT supported Royal Media to develop delivery of information through Internet and WAP for the feature phones so that past programmes may be accessed repeatedly using a mobile phone or Internet, by the listener whenever they need it. FIT also supported Nation Media to develop a radio program which provides Business Development Information Targeting young small Scale farmers whose production levels and incomes are low with an aim of improving their production levels and their incomes. The programme also targeted the Youth who are mostly unemployed or underemployed, with an aim of interesting them in farming as a business, by demonstrating that farming can be done profitably. The programmes developed focused on the entire value chain from inputs to consumption.

Description of Actual Services Provided by FIT:

• Concept formulation for a radio and ICT intervention in delivery of BDS,
• Support in devising an efficient archiving and retrieval system of content in the station,
• Devise an sms-based campaign to gather priority information needs of the listeners,
• Facilitate the design of radio programmes that will deliver needed information demanded by the listener.
• Train radio producers in the BDS concept,
• Support content provision by determining suitable content providers and sources for the information required by the listeners,

Devise an exit and sustainability strategy, including linking the stations with strategic partners for content provision and commercial support.