Former NTV ‘The Trend’ Host James Smart Returns With New Project

Former NTV news anchor James Smart on Monday, September 21, announced his return to Nation Media Group (NMG) with a new project.Smart, who pioneered ‘The Trend’ before it was later hosted by Larry Madowo and Amina Abdi, revealed that he has been tasked with leading the company’s podcasting project which he says has been a personal project. Speaking to Kenyans.co.ke, Smart says he excited to lead the new content frontier at NMG that he describes as ‘new territories filled with so much potential’.”It is exciting. We are in a good place to co-create content with other podcasters. We want to tell different stories and I think podcasts are a new way to reach new audiences and tell our story in a different way. Former NTV news anchor James Smart posing for a photo.Facebook “Other forms of media have a lot of limitations, but podcasts break those barriers and allows us to reach new audiences,” he explained.The project will soon be open to the public which will enable podcasters partner with NMG in order to produce content, but currently, the opportunity is open only to in-house staff.This is the first time NMG will be venturing into the podcasting space as a supplement to its existing product offerings. The company has formally rebranded on July 30, 2020, ushering in a digital-first strategy and expanding its target audience to Africa. Smart revealed that the first podcast is expected to be out within the course of the week with many others following suit.Interested podcasters can send an email to James Smart with a more formal channel of pitching podcast ideas set to be deveoped.  Discussions are also underway to find a structure of paying content creates who will partner with NMG.Smart also opened up on what he had been up to since leaving KTN back in 2017 as he took a break from the screens.”From the last time I was on TV, I went to the US and did fellowship. I have also been creating things with What’s Good Studios.”I have been around. I just took a very short break to recharge and look at where everything is going. It was a strategy break on my part just to get off the news and find new paths,” he noted. File image of a news set at NTV studios in NairobiTwitter