Next Media Unites With Capital Radio in Uganda’s Multi-Platform Push

Staff at Next Media and Capital Radio Group are being asked to stop thinking of themselves as two separate organisations. Their businesses have completed an integration into one group, Next Media Group CEO Kin Kariisa told employees, according to Nile Post Uganda (direct). The change brings an established radio business together with television, digital, production and streaming operations as the group seeks to follow audiences across more platforms.

Kariisa announced the completion during Next Media Talks, presenting it as a deliberate effort to combine the organisations’ people, platforms and capabilities. He described the integration as a merger and told staff that the two businesses now form a single organisation. The announcement marks a shift from bringing the businesses together to deciding how their teams and platforms will work as one.

“We've now completed what we call the merger between Next Media and Capital Radio Group. We are now one,” Kariisa told staff.

Radio experience meets a wider platform network

Capital Radio contributes decades of broadcasting experience, established audiences and experienced staff, Kariisa said. It also brings knowledge of Uganda’s media market. Those strengths give the expanded group a radio presence built on existing relationships with listeners, alongside the other ways it already has to produce and distribute content. Kariisa presented that experience as a central part of what Capital Radio adds to the combined organisation.

Next Media’s contribution is a portfolio covering television, digital platforms, content production, technology and streaming. Bringing these activities together with radio puts several stages of making and delivering content within the same group. The opportunity, as Kariisa outlined it, is to use that wider set of capabilities to reach people through the different platforms they increasingly choose, rather than treat each business’s strengths in isolation.

The backdrop is a change in audience habits. People are consuming content across traditional and digital platforms, requiring media businesses to adapt how they make, package and distribute it. Kariisa said the combined capabilities could help the enlarged group respond more effectively to that shift. The integration therefore concerns not only the organisations themselves, but also how their content can travel across radio, television and digital outlets.

The next task is working as one

For employees, Kariisa’s message focused on collaboration and shared knowledge. He said the integration should allow teams from both organisations to contribute to the group’s future. He urged staff to look beyond their separate histories and identities and adopt a common direction. That places the people behind the platforms at the centre of the transition, alongside the broadcasting experience and technical capabilities being brought together.

The expanded group now has a broader combination of brands, talent and ways to distribute content as it seeks to serve audiences in Uganda and beyond. With the integration complete, the next phase is about putting those resources to work together. What to watch is how the group connects Capital Radio’s established broadcasting strengths with Next Media’s production, television and digital operations to develop new ways of creating and delivering content.