BARBERTON – “The days of station managers who run community radio stations like tuck shops are numbered. As a forum, we are not going to tolerate such activities,” said the provincial chairperson of the community radio forum, Mr Mduduzi Zulu.
Some stations in the province are failing to fulfil their mandate due to poor management and maladministration.
“Community radio stations play a vital role in our societies like keeping people well informed and promoting the talent of young people who have an interest in the media world. We have realised that there are stations that are failing to operate accordingly due to lack of funding.
“In some, managers are doing as they please using the station money or funds to do personal things which is wrong. Therefore, the national Community Radio Forum gave us a mandate to host provincial conferences where we will address such issues so that our stations can become sustainable and grow,” he said.
Stations are expected to send delegates to the two-day conference to be held at Zithabiseni Resort on August 13 and 14. The objective is to restore the dignity of the stations.
Zulu added they wanted to address the issue of providing training to presenters so that it would be easy for them to take their careers to another level.
“Back in the days, community radio stations used to have relationships with different institutions like your ABC Ulwazi andNational Electronic Media Institute of South Africa (Nemisa) where our presenters and DJs got training, but all of that just vanished. Currently BCR FM have presenters who are attending training at Nemisa.We want that back in all stations,” he said.
Zulu concluded by appealing to government departments to advertise direct to community radio stations.
“The support from government is very poor. Some are advertising via agencies and it’s not doing justice to the stations because the money is too little”.
