Radio Grahamstown has upped its game in recent months, but there is still a long and winding road ahead.
In the not too distant past, Radio G was in ICU and not many people were confident of a full recovery.
Radio Grahamstown has upped its game in recent months, but there is still a long and winding road ahead.
In the not too distant past, Radio G was in ICU and not many people were confident of a full recovery.
The station went off the air because valuable broadcast equipment had disappeared while the management and the Board of Directors were at each others’ throats, even as Icasa threatened to revoke the station’s licence.
Makana Municipality started the recovery process last year, helping the station with some money and finding premises where they could begin broadcasting again.
At least the station was on the air most of the time – usually only when staffers could afford to pay for electricity.
Shortly before Festival this year, the Rhodes Journalism School and the US based Knight Foundation joined forces to enhance Radio G’s broadcasts.
The station moved into a refurbished section of the Grocott’s Mail building and Khaya Thonjeni, a Rhodes Schools outreach officer, took over as acting station manager.
Radio G is now doing what it is supposed to be doing – it rocks, or to be more precise it hip-hops. Recently the station has begun to broadcast current affairs shows twice a week.
These shows, on air on Tuesdays and Fridays, largely use material borrowed from Grocott’s Mail, but the newspaper is weaning the radio station off and already there are some great audio packages and live interviews.
The language mix is an informal blend of mainly isiXhosa together with odd sprinklings of English and Afrikaans.
Soon the station expects to have regular news bulletins. In order for the station to succeed, it still requires a lot of hard work and patience, but more than anything it needs the support of listeners and advertisers. Let us cheer for our own community radio station!
