How appropriate for a media outlet that deals with sound. A radio is playing, no, make that more than one radio, and a presenter’s lively voice comes across the airwaves. “This is Bassie Montewa, on Bush Radio - 89.5 FM....” He plays a latest release by a well-known South African musician, and then introduces a guest he’s about to interview. Today, Bush Radio is talking about drug abuse.
Diversity
This is Bush Radio, broadcasting on 89.5FM. The station has been broadcasting since 9 August 1995, and it’s still going strong. For five years, Bush broadcast twelve hours each day, but since June of 2000, the station has been broadcasting twenty-four hours a day. (1) That’s twenty-four hours of information, education and entertainment.
Bush Radio broadcasts to the Cape Metropolitan area, but more specifically, its target audience is the residents of the Cape Flats, where the most impoverished areas in Cape Town are. But who is Bush Radio’s audience exactly? Ask the station’s director, Zane Ibrahim, and the response you’d probably get is, “Well, that depends on what time of the day you’re talking about!”.
Bush Radio is well known and celebrated for its diversity in programming. In the space of just one day, you could choose from programmes dealing with political education, gender, health and labour issues, as well as lively talkshows with musicians from the townships, and much, much more. And musical diversity? There’s a choice of reggae, hip-hop, r ’n’ b, jazz, blues, kwaito and drum and bass.... It doesn’t get any better than this.
But Bush Radio is not only diverse in its programming: on any normal day you could walk into the station and find programme producers, men and women from diverse social and cultural backgrounds, young and old.
Some of the youngest volunteers are nine years old and are part of CREW, the Children’s Radio Education Workshop. Here and there you would also find people from other countries, such as Sweden, The Netherlands or Canada, who are at Bush Radio performing their journalism internships.
Audiocassettes
Bush Radio has a rich history. It originates from an initiative called CASET (Cassette Education Trust). In the late 80's, CASET produced audiocassettes that contained information regarding human rights and political education. These cassettes were distributed to people living in the townships, who had little or no access to this type of information.
Very soon, the same people who established CASET began discussing the possibilities of starting a community radio station. Out of these discussions, Bush Radio was born.
The combination of this rich history and the ongoing quest to promote equality, diversity, education and information to its community is what keeps Bush Radio going strong. After all, they don’t call it “the mother of community radio” for nothing.
Shelley Knipe is assistant station manager at Bush Radio.
Knipeshelley@hotmail.com
1 Summer 2001: Bush Radio is in the middle of renegotiations about their 24-hour broadcasting license. There is a serious chance that Bush will have to share the frequency with a new community radio station in the area around Cape Town.
----------------------------------------
Postal address:
PO Box 13290
Mowbray
7705 Cape TownSouth Africa
Tel: 27 21 448 54 50
Fax: 27 21 448 54 51
Visiting address:
330, Victoria Road
Salt River
7925 Cape TownSouth Africa
http://www.bushradio.co.za
Email: mother@bushradio.co.za
