Ghana's media economy and its sustainability

At the close of 2025, a colleague within the media fraternity quietly declared his intention to resign from his station.

That same evening, while driving through Kumasi, my attention was drawn to a conspicuous billboard announcing the arrival of yet another radio station in the city.

Within twenty-four hours, social media was awash with a flyer announcing that the entire on-air team of an established station had migrated wholesale to a competing network.

One could only wish them well and hope that their professional commitment and hard work (Sompa) over the years would translate into brighter (Owia) prospects. Ironically, a new palace (Ahemfie) has also emerged in Kumasi’s central business district, with a PhD-holding friend on board.

Closer to home, rumours of internal destabilisation began to intensify. As this article goes to press, such speculations persist, despite repeated assurances to the contrary. These episodic developments raise a fundamental and uncomfortable question: who truly benefits from Ghana’s media economy?

The prevailing labour dynamics offer a revealing lens. A typical on-air personality is routinely “poached” from one station to another under an agreed fee and a fixed term of service. Standard contractual clauses often require the presenter to reimburse the previous employer or return station property before assuming the new role.

When subjected to simple arithmetic, the model becomes deeply troubling. Within two or three years, the same presenter is compelled to seek yet another poaching fee from a new investor simply to offset obligations and maintain income levels. The result is a perpetual cycle of movement. Who benefits?

The strain, however, is not borne by labour alone. An investor friend recently confided his regret at establishing a media house.

In retrospect, he believes he was either misinformed or disinformed about the financial viability and growth projections of broadcasting ventures. “How does one survive in this deplorable media economy?” he asked, with palpable frustration.

Today, his principal challenge is no longer expansion or innovation, but the difficult task of offloading the business to a willing off-taker.

In practical terms, many media houses in Ghana are bleeding financially. This lament is not anecdotal; it is a recurring narrative echoed by investors across the spectrum.

Advertising revenues are thin and fragmented, operational costs continue to rise, and audience loyalty has become increasingly volatile in a crowded and highly competitive market. Yet, paradoxically, new entrants continue to emerge, propelled by an enduring but misleading narrative of imminent profitability and influence.

It is this false optimism—the mythology of quick returns and effortless relevance—that is gradually eroding the industry. Without a sober reassessment of ownership models, labour relations, revenue diversification, and regulatory enforcement, Ghana’s media economy risks becoming structurally unsustainable.

What is required is not merely the multiplication of stations or the recycling of talent, but a strategic rethinking of media as a long-term public and economic institution. Until then, the cycle of hope, disappointment, and exit is likely to remain the defining feature of the media landscape.

It must be emphasised that radio in Ghana can be phenomenally successful in terms of listenership, visibility, and audience influence, even when it is not financially viable. Many stations command massive daily audiences, shape public opinion, drive political discourse, and dominate the cultural soundscape of their localities.

Yet, paradoxically, these same stations often struggle to convert such popularity into sustainable revenue streams. In effect, audience capital has not consistently translated into economic capital within Ghana’s radio ecosystem.

This paradox exposes a fundamental structural disconnect between ratings and revenue. High listenership does not automatically guarantee advertising patronage, prompt payments, or long-term profitability.

Advertisers frequently exploit the fragmented and informal nature of the media market by negotiating unsustainably low rates, delaying payments indefinitely, or diverting budgets to cheaper digital platforms with weaker editorial credibility but stronger data analytics. Consequently, commercial success becomes decoupled from cultural relevance and public influence.

Several stations that appear vibrant, popular, and socially consequential on air are, in reality, operating under severe financial strain.

A further structural distortion lies in the legacy business model of early radio investors. Many pioneering station owners were not primarily media entrepreneurs but industrialists and traders engaged in production, importation, or large-scale commerce.

Radio stations in such cases functioned less as independent profit centres and more as in-house advertising platforms for parent businesses. Through sustained self-promotion, these investors realised higher profits—not from broadcasting itself, but from increased product visibility and market penetration.

This historical arrangement has inadvertently misled a new generation of investors into assuming that radio ownership is intrinsically profitable. The critical oversight is that the earlier model succeeded largely because the advertised products were competitive and of acceptable quality.

Where contemporary investors replicate this strategy with goods or services that fail to meet market standards, the anticipated revenue spillover does not materialise. Operational expenses—particularly staff salaries—are then routinely financed from external personal or corporate accounts rather than from the media house’s own revenue. Over time, such practices are neither transparent nor sustainable.

Compounding these challenges is the rapid transformation of the advertising ecosystem.

Traditional radio advertising has been severely undermined by the rise of social media platforms that offer cheaper, targeted, and performance-driven alternatives. As a result, many stations struggle to meet basic operational costs, including electricity, transmission maintenance, content production, and personnel remuneration.

Audience fragmentation and declining advertiser loyalty have further weakened revenue predictability.

Political ownership of media houses introduces yet another layer of fragility. Some politicians establish radio stations primarily as strategic instruments, expecting political proximity to translate into government advertising contracts and institutional patronage.

Where such contracts fail to materialise, or where political power changes hands, the business model collapses. Stations never structured for commercial resilience suddenly find themselves unable to meet payroll obligations. Unsurprisingly, many politically motivated media houses are currently grappling with salary arrears and chronic operational deficits.

Taken together, these dynamics expose a fundamental misconception: that media ownership automatically guarantees influence, profitability, or political advantage. In reality, influence without sustainability is ephemeral.

Without disciplined financial planning, diversified revenue models, professional management, and a clear separation between media operations and external political or commercial interests, Ghana’s media economy will continue to reproduce cycles of optimism followed by institutional distress.

The sustainability crisis confronting the industry is neither accidental nor insurmountable. It is the cumulative outcome of flawed ownership assumptions, weak business models, politicised investments, labour instability, and an advertising ecosystem that has evolved beyond traditional broadcasting. Yet embedded within this crisis is an opportunity for deliberate reform and strategic recalibration.

Media ownership must therefore be redefined beyond prestige and political leverage. Media houses should be established and managed as independent economic entities, governed by realistic financial projections, professional management structures, and clear revenue-diversification strategies. Stations sustained solely by personal subsidies or political patronage are structurally vulnerable and ultimately unsustainable.

Labour relations within the industry must also be stabilised. The prevailing culture of serial poaching, short-term contracts, and recurring compensation cycles undermines institutional memory, professional growth, and organisational stability.

Political actors must likewise be encouraged—through regulation and ethical consensus—to separate media ownership from partisan expectation.

Where politicians choose to invest in media, such ventures should be insulated from electoral cycles and structured to withstand changes in political fortune. A media house should not rise or fall with the ballot box.

Finally, regulators, investors, academic institutions, and practitioners must collaborate to rethink media education, policy, and economic literacy.

Investors must be better informed before entry; managers trained in contemporary media economics; and policymakers encouraged to update regulatory frameworks to reflect current realities.

Sustainability cannot be legislated into existence, but it can be enabled through foresight, discipline, and collective responsibility.

In sum, the future of Ghana’s media economy will not be secured by the proliferation of stations, the recycling of talent, or the illusion of influence.

It will be secured by sound economics, ethical ownership, innovation, and long-term vision. Without these, the industry will continue to oscillate between hope and hardship. With them, it can reclaim its place as both a viable enterprise and a credible public institution.

Kwame Adinkrah, PhD | Broadcaster