The Star, Kenya

The Star is now the third largest newspaper in Kenya and is still growing rapidly. It was launched in July 2007 as the Nairobi Star, a 32 page tabloid style newspaper concentrating on human interest stories in Nairobi and Kenya. In 2008 the paper switched to a more political general news format while retaining its original strong focus on society stories, english premier league sport, and inside political information. In 2009 it was rebranded as the Star (dropping the Nairobi moniker) and refocussed on national news and additional op-ed pages that provided an open forum for political debate. The Star adopted the slogan 'Fresh, Independent, Different' to differentiate itself from its two main competitors that were perceived as excessively conservative.In 2010 the Star launched its website www.the-star.co.ke The Star remains the most independent of the Kenyan newspapers and probably the most outspoken. It has more regional news, more sports news, more social pages and more opinion columns than its competitors. It targets a younger market than the Standard and the Nation but particularly tries to attract the attention of the 'thinking' reader. It has been running an advertising campaign with the catchline 'Smart People Read the Star'. The Star is majority owned by the Radio Africa Group, who also operate Kiss FM and Classic FM, urban Kenya's most popular radio stations, as well as Kiss TV, Radio Jambo, XFM and East FM.