Mamavi, AJ Sarpong and Miriam keep girl power on the mid-morning

Male presenters have been few and far in-between as it would seem the mid-morning shows on Accra radio have been dominated by female presenters over the years.

It seems like a playground for them and the daypart where they flourish the most.

Kofi Kum Bilson and Odeefour have been key mid-morning presenters, so were Yaw Nkrumah, Doctor Duncan, Kwame Farkye, Sammy Forson, Trigmatic, Antoine and a few other men who were given the task by their station managers to present the mid-morning show.

Even some of these male presenters were more known for their performance on other dayparts and on other shows.

For example, Farkye was known more for his performance on Atlantis Drive, Bilson from his days on Lunch Time Rhythms on Joy, morning show on Luv and Sunday afternoon show, Doctor Duncan on Kasa Hare, and so on.

The mid-morning has been the domain of women, simplicita. When she was at Top Radio and then moved on to Oman FM, Deloris Frimpong-Manso or Delay as she is popularly known, was a force on the mid-morning and her exploits are stuff of legends on these stations.

Her style was risqué and sassy, which determined her content style, music selection and dialogue with her callers.

This style warmed her up to her audience and engendered good engagement with them even before the social media era.

There was then her replacement, Ohemaa Woyeje who also had an almost similar style and did her thing till she joined Adom FM also as the mid-morning show host.

At Adom FM, she did her best to make her show as lively as before and to make it engaging and exciting for her audience.

Before all these however, there was the matriarch herself, the Queen of the Airwaves, Doreen Andoh who had been around since Nebuchadnezzar (just kidding) and had been the one who determined how that part of the day should be run.

For almost 25 years Doreen has attended to the needs of her audience by serving them good music themed by the mood of the day, interspersed with tidbits of information, entertainment news and other content that kept them glued to her show every weekday.

Don’t forget that about the same time that Doreen started doing this on Joy FM, there was another Andoh on the radio down the road from Kokomlemle to Latebiokorshie.

Yvonne Andoh is Doreen’s elder sister who presented the mid-morning show and other programmes on Radio Gold for some time before leaving.

Then there were the many other women who showed up about the same time to either sit in when Doreen wasn’t available on Joy FM or compete with her on other stations.

Off the top of my head, the notable sit-ins for Doreen are Ivy Heward-Mills and Naana Dankwa.

These were great ladies whose sweet disposition endeared them to the audience as well.

With regards to those who came around to compete with Doreen and her show, two names come to mind. Choice FM at the time was the one station that gave Joy FM a good run for its money and they plucked some very intelligent people to compete across dayparts.

For example, they had Kwabena Pecku on the morning show to compete with his childhood buddy, Komla Dumor (Pecku would end up at Joy FM before quitting radio by the way) and they had Kwasi Kyei Darkwa’s younger brother, Yaw Addo Darkwa (who “flows like aqua”) doing the drive same time as did Farkye, Jon Germain and others to hit home after Maame Dokono’s Odo Ne Asomdwee and Fiifi Pratt’s Highlife Paradise.

However, the action was in the mid-morning. After former Joy FM General, Tommy Annan-Forson had presented the morning show, he paved the way for these two bubbly young ladies, Rachel Nyann and Vanessa D.D. Odonkor to take over the airwaves and do their thing.

I could say with conviction that the period when former Groove FM presenter, Nyann and former Atlantis presenter, Odonkor were on the mid-morning show together was the most fun period during those competitive days of radio between Joy FM and Choice FM.

These two were amazing and they made tuning in to listen to radio worth the effort. We’d always go back to Doreen, but we cheated with the two once too many times.

When Starr FM started broadcasting five years ago they chose a female, Naa Ashorkor Mensah-Doku as the host of their mid-morning show, The Zone.

It may have been jittery from the onset, but she warmed herself into it and did a great job eventually.

The point of this piece is to build to today and show that still the preference for a mid-morning show host on Accra radio seems to be leaning towards women. The three I see currently are Joy FM’s Mamavi Owusu Aboagye, Citi FM’s AJ Sarpong and 3FM’s Miriam Osei-Agyemang.

As previously mentioned, Doreen has been on the Cosmopolitan Mix for a long time, however, occasionally she would be away and someone would sit in.

There have been different people doing that, including the host of the morning show on Joy News TV, Mamavi.

 Mamavi Owusu Aboagye

I think the best sit-in for Doreen over the years has been Mamavi and it is fitting that since Doreen has been away for some months now, she has been the one doing the show. I am an unashamed Mamavi fan and hope she keeps the show for as long as Doreen would be away.

I think Mamavi’s strength comes with the type of songs she plays on the show and the edgy nature of the content when she is the one behind the console on Cosmo Mix.  For a long time, Jessica Opare-Saforo was the host of the midmorning show on Citi FM where she did so well before being moved to the late afternoon show and replaced with Osei Kwame who, in my view, had his strength in music appreciation and understanding.

For a while now though it seems Osei Kwame has given way to former GHOne and Starr FM presenter AJ Sarpong to host the  mid-morning show, Brunch in the Citi. AJ is bubbly and chatty and entertainment biased and all these are reflected in how the show comes out.

AJ Sarpong

I think she is doing a good job and may keep the show for long.

Miriam’s situation is different as she is not or did not take over from someone; she has been the host of the relatively new Urban Blend on 3FM since its inception.

 Miriam Osei-Agyemang

The station is barely four years and so is the show that Miriam hosts.

It makes sense therefore that her style, which is laid back, defines the character of the show. Miriam combines good music and the most relevant tidbits and entertainment news to the audience.

I think the biggest asset of Miriam’s is her voice and perhaps that is what endears her to the listeners she interacts with on daily basis.

These three ladies may just be doing their jobs as hosts of the mid-morning shows on three competitive stations, but they are just continuing the tradition of preference of female for that part of the day on Accra radio.

@TheGHMediaGuru