By Josephine Agbonkhese

Founder/CEO of Nigeria’s premiere women-only radio station, W.fm, Toun Okewale Sonaiya, has revealed that the under-representation and stereotyping of women in radio programmes across the country inspired the establishment of  W.fm.

Sonaiya spoke during a visit to Vanguard Newspapers’ corporate head-office in Lagos, yesterday. According to her, a recent study carried-out by W.fm showed that only 17 per cent of radio programmes were solely focused on women issues, with 15 per cent of these coming from inspirational radio stations. The programmes, she added, were also presented and produced by men.

“These programmes also stereotyped women as they would rather talk about those who were either going through domestic violence or having relationship and parenting issues.”