A peep into the corporate world of the Fresh FM conglomerate reveals interesting, upscale goals driven by committed young minds.
The Fresh FM idea was conceptualised in 2007 as Online Radio by frontline musician, Yinka Ayefele. It commenced operation on this note with initial focus on news update, sports reports, traffic and weather updates etc.
Some years later, Yinka Ayefele was granted the first terrestrial radio licence (Fresh FM 105.9) which commenced operation at the site of the Online Radio with a bigger force of vision and goals, spreading to vital areas of the South West. It soon became a reference point within a very short space of operation.
Part of the success trick, obviously, was that the Founder surrounded himself with agile and new-generation oriented youths who soon became the toasts of listeners in the station’s areas of coverage.
Inspired by the success of the Ibadan based Fresh FM, Ayefele soon moved to other states, beginning with Abeokuta, Ogun State and others in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Osogbo, Osun State, Akure, Ondo State, Lagos, Lagos State. As at today, Fresh FM conglomerate has the largest spread in the South West of Nigeria with a reach to other regions. Not only that, the Ibadan headquarters of Fresh FM houses two other radio stations, Blast FM and Tiwa n Tiwa FM.
Yinka Ayefele, Chairman and Founder of the Fresh FM stations, is a frontline Nigerian musician. He is mostly adored for creating the “Tungba Music Genre”, a popular brand with a fresh taste after the original juju music of KSA/Ebenezer Obey and Sir Shina Peters’ ‘Afro-Juju’. Ayefele is also a music producer and a veteran radio presenter.
Kicking off with ‘Bitter Experience’ in 1998, Ayefele has taken the music scene by storm with such other works like ‘Everlasting Grace’, ‘Fulfillment’, ‘Funfair’ and scores of other which have attracted national and international acclaim. For all these contributions, he has a national award (MON) among several other awards.
Perhaps, the most challenging event in the history of Fresh FM was when the Administration of the late Governor Isiaka Ajimobi demolished the Ibadan headquarters five years ago, on August 19, 2018. This was one step that earned condemnations for the government all over the world and sympathy for Yinka Ayefele as a proprietor.
Professionally, both BON as the umbrella body for broadcasting stations and NBC as the regulatory government agency for broadcasting in Nigeria condemned the action.
BON, in its statement, said: “As an umbrella body of broadcast stations in the country, we find this action not only oppressive and high handed but a demonstration of flagrant muzzling of the media and press freedom…”
The NBC said: “Such a development does not speak well of the government and has negative effect on the nation…”
Few months later, smiles came back on the faces of Ayefele, members of the management and staff when the Oyo State Government made a u-turn to rebuild the partially demolished building.