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| MC Bobby is host of Easy Stream on 3FM (92.7) |
“I started school at
Bible Faith Experimental School, Anyaano-Kumasi but completed my basic
education at Rockanje Presbyterian Experimental School, 4 Miles, Tafo-Kumasi, all
in the Ashanti Region,” says one of Ghana’s finest radio presenters.
He is stoutly built, dark
skinned and a fashionista with an addictive style of fedora-wearing which is almost
becoming his trademark. Nonetheless, you may probably not make him out in town
with any of these attributes in mind. Trust me! The first day I saw him in
person was at the Agape Seventh Day Adventist Church in Sunyani. It was not
after he had spoken that I told a friend of mine that “That’s him!”
Born Owusu Amponsah
Bobby Manfred and famed in the media circles as simply MC Bobby, he is the kind
of broadcaster every serious media house would want to keep any day. His deep
baritone voice commands his teeming listeners to stick to their radio sets. He
exudes some overwhelming magic!
Back in the Brong Ahafo
region, MC Bobby took the media landscape by storm as he succeeded in
consolidating the numerous radio stations there into two whenever it was time
for the late afternoon show. Indeed, it was his late afternoon show on Sky FM (96.7) dubbed Buzzy Drive and the rest of the other
stations.
Whoever has followed
the evolution of radio in the Brong Ahafo region would attest that there cannot
be a shortlist of 10 all-time best in that industry without mentioning MC Bobby’s
name.
In a country where
identifying talent in our children is as rare as a hen’s teeth, I am not
totally surprised that the broadcaster actually has a background in Accounting.
After his secondary education at the then Abuakwa State College, he proceeded
to the then Sunyani Polytechnic, now Sunyani Technical University.
In a WhatsApp chat with
MC Bobby, I asked why he spent three years at the polytechnic studying HND
Accountancy when he was all into broadcasting even as a student.
“That’s how interesting
life could be at times,” he told me. “For real, Sunyani Polytechnic was my next
stop after secondary school where I pursued HND Accountancy and afterwards, to
the Catholic University, at Fiapre, also in the Brong Ahafo Region to pursue
BSC in Business Management. Can you imagine?” he said.
Shelving his business
laurels of certificates, MC Bobby became a household name in the Brong Ahafo
region through the power of radio.
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| MC Bobby |
“They used to call me
Sunyani Bola Ray. I was that huge and celebrated there. They likened me to Bola
Ray probably because of my baritone voice on air and definitely because I was
hosting the late afternoon show there and arguably their finest,” he recounts.
Having conquered the
Brong Ahafo Region, he decided to make a great decision. He would move to
Accra. Here, his aim was to challenge himself even more in the media space.
“I moved to Accra
simply because I felt I had outgrown Sunyani's media space or probably that of the
entire region. I needed a bit of competition since I was growing complacent. I
love new challenges. I love to be challenged any day. So, I said to myself, ‘Why
not try Accra? If people are doing it big there, why can't I?’”
As Sam Levenson advises
that “Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going,” the young man poised
to be in Accra to make a difference held his vision tightly like a relay
button. He kept going. Having settled in Accra eventually, he got himself the
opportunity to host the late afternoon show on 3FM (92.7) – a sister station of TV3. He would host a show dubbed Easy Stream from 4-8pm on Mondays-Thursdays and from 4-6pm on
Fridays.
MC Bobby is not the
usual broadcaster who does the ‘copy and paste’ that dominates our media
industry. Is it not so annoying that every television station now has a show of
food cooking just because one started it? Are you not worried that from Paga to
Axim, almost every television/radio station has the same format of a morning
show? And have you not been malnourished by most of the country’s late
afternoon shows where the presenter will read or have in-studio actors on a conversation
of a grudge between two lovers so listeners call in to discuss such?
I do media monitoring
very much. And if I compare even the ‘known names’ of late afternoon presenters
in the capital city, I can say without fear of contradiction that MC Bobby is
redefining Accra’s late afternoon show.
Working with a
well-coordinated content on his show, Easy
Stream, such as Poll Mondays, Easy Talk, Smart or Dumb among others, his teeming listeners hardly flick
their dial. It is, therefore, not surprising to hear his listeners almost
always requesting to meet their rising star in person to know who he really is.
On Sunday, November 25,
2018, MC Bobby acted as a TV host to Ohema, Brong Ahafo Region’s representative
for the just ended Ghana’s Most Beautiful [GMB] on TV3.
If you watched the said
show, you saw the face behind that voice on 3FM
and you would agree his dexterity in broadcasting is exceptionally unmatched. Many
have called for MC Bobby to combine radio with television.
Indeed, few years in
Accra I am not surprised to see attempts by equally renowned media houses in
the capital that want to poach him. As a close friend of MC Bobby, I get the
opportunity to see a flood of emails to this effect. Nonetheless, what he keeps
telling me is that he will not rush into taking a decision. He still considers
himself as studying the Accra terrain despite his enviable track record of his
broadcasting prowess.
“The competition here [Accra]
is serious and makes me sit up any time I'm on air. I mean I'm still a work in
progress but I love what I'm building here. So far, Accra has received me well
and I know it will get better with time since consistency counts a lot in our
line of work,” he tells me.
When asked his worst
moment in his radio journey, MC Bobby said that people so close to him he
thought could understood his moving to Accra rather narrowly got him giving up.
“My family and ex-girlfriend
didn't see the logic in my resolve to move to Accra. To them, ‘Who leaves his
job, position and reputation to go start all over again somewhere?’ They not
seeing the bigger picture I envisaged and that nearly broke me down. This,
perhaps, has been the most difficult moment that I have had to battle in my
broadcasting career,” he said.
Well, with his past
behind him, MC Bobby is soldiering on now in glory and Accra and Ghana can only
wait in the next few years ahead to see him ‘explode.’ If you were not the type
that listened to radio because of the overdose of junk content, you now have a
great broadcaster in the making to listen to. Yes, a broadcaster assisting us
distinguish between wheat and chaff!
“May you live as long
as you like and have all you like as long as you live. And always thank God for
radio,” is MC Bobby’s closing remarks on radio and also my prayer for you for
choosing him.
The writer, Solomon Mensah, is a
broadcast journalist with Media General (TV3/3FM). Views expressed here are
solely his and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of his
organisation.
Email: nehusthan@yahoo.com
Twitter: @aniwaba
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