“I can’t compete with my students anymore” Larry Madowo highlights reason why he quit the Trend

Friday June 30th will be Larry Madowo’s last show on The Trend. The NTV anchor announced his departure four days ago.

Larry Madowo took a swipe at other TV stations that copied the Trend, he said replication of the Trend was among the things that compelled him to quit and come up with something better.

“If you look at Friday night television in Kenya now, everybody is trying to do what I have done. Yes I said it, everybody is trying to do what Larry Madowo has done…they are copying the Trend, everybody and every channel. I think I can’t compete with my students anymore, people are trying to be me so it’s time for me to move on. That’s the simple reason,” Larry Madowo ranted.

Sometimes in June 2015, Larry expressed his frustrations with K24 after the station came up with their own versions of the Trend dubbed ‘Talk Central’.

On his Daily Nation FrontRow column titled ‘Monkey see, monkey do: Kenyan copycats killed creative industry’, Larry put K24 on the spot for openly copying the Trend.

But it’s perhaps the launch of Citizen TV’s version of the Trend that hammered the final nail in Larry Madowo’s coffin. Citizen TV’s 10 Over 10 did not only copy the Trend but also runs on the same time slot with the Trend, giving the NTV show direct competition.

“It’s good to be able to leave something, especially something that you love and going to do something else…and for me am grateful that I had this chance to be a part of something that is great, I have worked with the best team in television… they are young talented guys and it has been a privilege and an honor to present their work because truly these guys that you’ve never met they are credit to this profession, they are truly the best that you could ever find in this business. And that’s why the work that we do here is copied by everyone else. I have said this before, Kenya’s TV idea of innovation is monkey see monkey do, we do something successful everybody else tries to do it. So am done trying to give people ideas, am gonna try maybe on different night of television maybe do something different so other people can copy it,” Larry Madowo said on The Trend on Friday June 23rd.

Apart from other Kenyan TV stations copying the Trend, Larry Madowo also cited his frequent trips abroad as the reason why he opted to quit the Trend.

“If you have watched the show you have noticed that I have been away a lot. Am travelling more and more now and I have felt that I wasn’t giving the show 100%. So it was time to step away so somebody else could have that chance, right? I think that’s great and whoever it is that’s going to take over the show I can assure you there gonna be great, they will be tremendous,” said Larry Madowo.

Watch Larry explain why he left the Trend in the video below: