DESPITE challenges experienced during lockdown, Durban Youth Radio (DYR) has come out strong on the other side, and is celebrating its bright future.
Speaking to Berea Mail, marketing manager and head of training, Kevin Minter-Brown, and head of technical and sales manager, Cameron Claassens, said as a small community radio station, lockdown was a difficult time.
“We rely on advertising so we took a bit of a knock, but we wanted to come back strong,” said Kevin.
He said their goal for years has been to fix its transmission and they applied for their own transmitter in July as a temporary measure.
The transmitter was stationed in Queensburgh.
“Two years ago we got the ball rolling to identify a site that would distribute the signal evenly over the area. Places like Durban North, uMhlanga and KwaMashu were badly affected. People would say that they love us, but they can’t hear us!” he said.
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The men started to gather their new equipment, and during lockdown when they were broadcasting from home, they started to prepare for the move.
“The transmitter has now been moved to a prominent, desirable location on the Berea. We were so happy with Icasa as they really came to the party and worked with us and we finally got the licence for the new site at the end of July.”
Following the move, the station is now operating at 90 per cent.
They said they realised there were some places in the Highway area where the signal was still not the best, but they felt they had to fix the centre in the epicentre of the area, and that they now had the prime location.
“Our challenge is we need at least three transmitters to cover Durban, but we feel we have the best location to cover as much as we can.”
“We want our listeners to know that we are aware of the issues, and there is a plan in the pipeline to address these going forward. It’s not an immediate fix, but we will get there. Right now, this is the best the signal has ever been,” said Cameron.
Kevin said the station had grown immensely in the two years it had been based in Florida Road.
“The station has been thrust into the limelight and the only way to go is up! We are not going anywhere. We have such a responsibility to our team of youth. So far 22 have gone on to paid positions on radio. We had a challenge during lockdown that we weren’t able to take on trainees and were operating on skeleton staff, but we are excited and looking forward to opening our doors again to a new wave of trainees,” he said.
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What’s more, he said the station has acquired a designed new campaign by Avatar Durban, which will soon be on billboards and street poles in Durban.
“We remain committed to taking radio to the roots, to good, solid community content, incredible music and to supporting Durban artists and entrepreneurs. We are coming back with a vengeance!” said Kevin.
Cameron said due to the pandemic, the station had been privately funded for the past six months just to stay afloat. He said the station had started a Backabuddy fundraising platform for people to supporting the station in the form of crowdfunding. People will be able to contribute monthly.
“We will be putting a campaign out for support to enable us to grow, and support local talent and uplift the youth even more. At the end of the day, this is a training facility, and we do this work at no charge. It will be difficult to grow without the support of the Durban community,” he said.
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