“Musical Maestro” propels Kaya FM to new heights

At night, Greg Maloka goes by the name of the “Musical Maestro” when he is behind the DJ decks wowing his fans at Kaya FM events, but during the day he is the managing director of Kaya FM, one of South Africa’s successful commercial radio stations.

In just five years, Greg has catapulted Kaya FM to many accolades, thanks to the cult following the radio station is enjoying in Gauteng, where it is based. He affectionately refers to Kaya FM’s 1.4 million listeners as Afropolitans and he calls the radio station their home.

The Afropolitans are part of the 4.2 million black middle class, which is fast becoming the most desired consumer market in South Africa, thanks to its rising income.

Greg affectionately refers to Kaya FM’s 1.4 million listeners as Afropolitans.
The Afropolitans are part of the 4.2 million black middle class, which is fast becoming the most desired consumer market in South Africa, thanks to its rising income.

“Afropolitans are individuals who live and work in Africa, they are concerned about family, community, and good citizenship. They are also secure; and have intellectual approach to life; and are part of the middle and upper middle class. Some grew up in the middle class and others have grown into the middle class,” says Greg.

Thebe Times caught up with Greg at Kaya FM’s new swanky building in Rosebank, where the most recent accolade in the station’s cabinet the “Best Commercial Radio Station of the Year” trophy is proudly displayed in his office’s trophy cabinet. The station beat strong competitors including; 5FM, 567 Cape Talk, East Coast Radio and Talk Radio 702 to be crowned South Africa’s number 1 commercial radio station.

The trophy was bestowed to Kaya FM at the 4th annual MTN Radio Awards which were held at the Sandton Convention Centre in April. The station’s top presenters also walked away with awards.

Top honours also went to Bob Mabena for “Best Breakfast Show” for 180 with Bob, “Best Night Time Show” went to Mapaseka Mokwele for Home with Mapaseka Mokwele and “Best News and Actuality” went to John Perlman for Today with John Perlman.

Even before it became fashionable to target the black middle class, or the so-called “Black Diamonds”, Kaya FM has always set its sights on this market from the time it went live in 1997.

According to a research report released in April by the UCT Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing, the black middle class has doubled in size to 4.2 million people from 1.7 million 2003.

The report states that the black middle class spends about R400 billion per annum compared with R320 billion by the white middle class. Greg has positioned Kaya FM to take advantage of this lucrative market, growing the station’s revenue by over 30% annually while competitors recorded single-digit revenue growth.
But Greg argues that the black middle class has always been with us since pre-1994, but it has been ignored by South African consumer-focused companies. He believes that advertisers and marketers continue to misunderstand and undervalue this market.

“We have to creatively assist advertisers to connect with this market, but in the context of South Africa, you can’t persist with traditional ways of advertising, which target only white consumers whereas there is clear evidence that there is a vibrant black consumer market,” argues Greg.

In a report code-named “The Inconvenient Truth”, Kaya FM is arguing against the pigeon-holding of black consumers as rampant spenders and accumulators of debt, who have scant regard for saving. Greg says this perception of black consumers has led to the low valuation of this market segment by advertisers.
“As a result of this, you had a situation where we had 1.4 million high quality black middle class listeners, but we were making less than Highveld Stereo with only 700 000 listeners,” he says.

Greg revealed to Thebe Times that he intends to expand Kaya FM’s content and brand to platforms like television. Kaya FM is already publishing Afropolitan magazine in partnership with Contact Media and the expansion to television presents a huge potential. The station has already experimented with television broadcasting when it provided content to Dstv’s Mzansi Magic channel Top 10 at Ten with T-Bose.

Greg made a name for himself as a DJ and later a general manager for popular youth radio station Yfm, which was also launched in 1997. He says when he was at Yfm he had a “secret love affair” with Kaya FM, hence he decided to join the radio station when the opportunity arose in 2008.

In early 2008, a call came from the office of Sfiso Buthelezi, a director for Kaya FM and chief operating officer of Makana Investment Corporation, one of Kaya FM’s shareholders. Sfiso wanted to talk to Greg about the possibility of him joining Kaya FM as the managing director. As they say, the rest is history.

“It was the first time I have ever been head-hunted in my life…I was very humbled and honored by the fact that they chose me for the job, out of many talented people in my industry,” he says.

“I have always admired black business pioneers like Thebe and Makana and when your heroes call on you to do something for them, you cannot say NO,” he adds.

What many of Greg’s fans do not know is that he cut his teeth in radio at TNT Radio, a campus radio station for TNT Technikon, north of Pretoria, where he was a student. During his stint at TNT Radio, he helped to professionalise the radio station and effectively positioned it for its target market (students). He also introduced advertising and had helped the station to acquire a community radio licence.

By the time he left the station — where he got his trademark name “Musical Maestro” for his wide knowledge of music– in early 1997, he had held built up considerable management experience.

TNT moulded and prepared Greg for his next challenge. His big break came at Yfm in 1997, which also launched on the same year as Kaya FM.

“Out of the 600 people who came for audition for gigs at Yfm, there were probably 50 guys who were better than me. I had to stand out if I wanted to make the cut. So I drafted a proposal on how the radio station should deal with auditioning, positioning, programming, and music.

“I then gave the proposal to one of the managers at Yfm. The following day I was asked to come and attend a management meeting, which was chaired by Yfm’s first MD, Dirk Hartford,” he says. After the meeting he was asked by Dirk to conduct the auditions in the process helping to unearth raw, unknown, untested talent like Oskido, Rudeboy Paul, Bad Boy T, DJ Fresh and many other DJs who are now household names in the broadcasting and house music scene in South Africa.