Antoine Mensah Takes Over From Giovani As Live 91.9 FM Progammes Manager

Antoine Mensah is the new Programs Manager of Ghana’s favourite Youth brand, Live 91.9 FM.

He takes over from Giovani Caleb who moved to Starr FM as co-host of Starr Drive weeks ago.

A rising figure in the entertainment industry in Ghana, he has earned himself a huge following for his wit, presentation, choice of music and talent.

He currently hosts Lifestyle Cafe, the nation’s favourite mid-morning show, and the ENTLive show on Saturdays.

Born Anthony Ofori Mensah, he started his career some six years.

He spoke to this reporter about how radio started for him.

Choice FM 2010, right out of PRESEC (Presbyterian Boys Secondary School, Legon). Before that though, I’d been listening to radio but I never really thought I’d be in the industry like I am today. So yeah, early 2010 I was talking to one of my very close friends Esi Hammah about how we’d make a great pair on radio, this was during the one year break after high school.

She got a job with a company that was rebranding choice FM and recommended me for one of their shows, I did a demo submitted it and eventually got a shot at it. It wasn’t easy though, I flopped a few times.lol

And had pretty bad experiences with a few ‘big named presenters’ at the time. You know there’s this perception in the media industry, the big guns a lot of times feel the young promising ones must go through the same wahala they went through before they made it to the top. So they tend to put you through a lot of unnecessary stress and pressure. It’s all good though. You just take it as one of those challenges. There was a lot of discouragement but overall it was an interesting experience; I think overall I went on air two weeks straight at Choice FM doing the Drive Time.

Obviously the managers liked what they heard and kept pushing for me. But at the same time I was working on a ‘once-a-week’ show for Vibe FM (233 LIVE Show), so when that was ready, I made that move.

I hosted that show with Yayra Tay. Mr Lee (then general manager of Vibe FM) heard it, and he loved it, he then sent it to Mike Cooke, (now the COO of Live FM), he liked it as well and put us on air straight away! So every Saturday morning, it was 233 live show. I hosted that show for the next 2 years with a number of female co-hosts, before Vibe switched to Live FM.

During that time I was asked to sit-in for the regular host of Traffic Jam (evening drive) .I did, and the next week they told me, it’s your show. It was incredible!

I had the liberty of learning on the job which I did because I was passionate about it, going in and out. I often got a lot of negative comments but I loved where I was, the room it gave me develops my talent and the opportunities it brought my way. I did that two years, my first and second year in University, it was hard but again, I loved every bit of it. Next thing I know, we hear the station has been bought, and it turns into this (Live FM) it’s amazing!