Radio Presenters Shix Kapienga and Syombua Osiany
A day after Mediamax Limited-owned K24 TV sent home its entire newsroom staff, the Royal Media Services (RMS) has joined in the party and issued redundancy letters to some of its top journalists and presenters.
The media house started by laying off employees in the radio departments including Hot 96 FM Presenter Nancy Wanjiku Karanja popularly known as to many as Shix Kapienga, Radio Citizen presenters Syombua Osiany, John Maloba, Himenigilder Mugeni among others.
Shix Kapienga hosted Drop Zone on Hot 96 FM each Monday to Thursday from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. while Syombua hosted Pambazuka on Radio Citizen from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m.
Employees in other departments are expected to learn of their fate within the course of the week, with early reports indicating that two highly placed TV presenters are already facing the sack.
In February 2020, there were rumours that the media house would lay off some of its employees, citing hard economic times.
However, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country in March, the media house announced a general salary reduction for all its staff, stating that its workers would be subjected to a compulsory pay cut of between 20% and 30%.
On Sunday over 100 Mediamax employees were notified of their redundancies, with most of the departments being swept clean.
Journalists from Switch TV and TV 47 have since been contracted to replace the staff.
Their layoffs came less than a year after the company sacked 160 employees in October 2019.
Popular radio presenter Felix Odiwuor, commonly known as Jalang’o also quit Milele FM which is owned by Mediamax.
The comedian made the announcement of his resignation on Monday night on social media, explaining that his decision had been informed by an apparent contractual dispute with his employer.
One month ago it was reported that Jalang’o led his colleagues in instituting legal proceeds against the company over the proposed pay cuts.
He becomes the second celebrity presenter, after TV news anchor Betty Kyalo, to quit the troubled media house.
