Justin Pearce
THERE’S music floating over the boxy, red- brick buildings of the University of the North: the creamy sounds of Kenny G’s saxophone. The music is issuing from a loudspeaker on the wall of the student centre, the home of Radio Turf. Inside the studio, science student Thapelo Sehume is behind the microphone, chatting to his listeners between
Shume’s DJ-ing style is a uniquely South African mix: one moment he’ll refer to the station, American-style, as T.U.R.F., the next he’ll be throwing in Biblical references in keeping with a part of the country where Christianity is a powerful social force; the next he’ll talk about ubuntu.
Radio Turf — it takes its name from Turfloop, the village where the university is situated — came into being late in 1994, as a service to the students and staff of the University of the North. Initially it broadcast only to the campus itself, which was all that was legally possible at the time. But Turf entered the field at exactly the right moment, when the Independent Broadcasting Authority was taking the first steps towards making community radio a possibility.
While many of the stations which applied to the IBA were trying to use the “community” label to secure a licence for a commercial operation, Turf’s credentials were impeccable. It was also the only community station planning to broadcast in its region, so there were no time-consuming squabbles over frequency allocation. Hence it was among the first community stations to receive a licence and, since the station was already broadcasting to the campus, it was a simple matter to switch to a more powerful transmitter. The station went on the air early in April this year, broadcasting 18 hours a day on 103.8FM over a 50km radius on a transmitter supplied by the university.
Ever since then, Turf Radio has done its best to live up to its motto as “the station that listens to the people”. While at present the station is staffed by student volunteers, plans are afoot to involve people from the surrounding communities so that the station does not become too dominated by student
A phone-in line enables the people of the region to keep a check on the Turf staff “doing our own thing”, as its fundraising director, Given Mkhari, puts it. But the lack of telephones in some regions poses problems.
“We are going to find out what rural people want,”Mkhari says. “They have no phones, so we have to go to them. It is difficult but we are doing our best.”
One of the station’s most important functions is keeping people up to date with a changing society, filling them in on developments in the law and opportunities offered by the Reconstruction and Development Programme. Northern Province Premier Ngoako Ramathlodi has spoken on a talk-show on Radio Turf — lawyers, politicians, development experts and anyone else who can give an insight into current events appear regularly on the station. Radio Turf’s open-door policy ensures that the station is anything but a propaganda mouthpiece — the station is also a forum for discussion about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of government initiatives.
News bulletins keep listeners up to date on national and local happenings, with an emphasis on the local. “Other stations air national issues,”Mkhari says. “Through us people get a sense of who they are.”
Radio Turf has been awarded a certificate of merit from nearby Mankweng township for its contribution to the community. And it joined a campaign against a local car-theft racket, broadcasting descriptions of stolen and recovered cars.
Makhari is now working on making the station self-financing by means of selling advertising time, and here the local focus should prove an advantage in getting local small businesses to
The community-first philosophy also applies to music broadcasting. One recent innovation is “Local Beat”, a programme of music made by people in the immediate vicinity of the station, some of whom had never recorded before. When it comes to commercial music, the station has never spent a cent on tapes or CDs. It gets by with demo tapes donated by South African artists, and the ingenious system of “sponsored programmes”: a student will lend the station his or her collection of tapes and CDs for the duration of a programme. The station’s licence includes the agreement that at least 60 percent of music airtime must be given over to South African music.
The university draws students from around the country, so Radio Turf broadcasts mostly in English, which is the most widely understood common language. This policy is flexible, though: for instance, a programme aimed at elderly people outside the university will be broadcast in the local vernacular, North
Training has always been a top priority for Radio Turf. A core group of staff was trained at Unesco expense by the South African Students’ Press Union, the National Community Radio Forum, and the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism. This core group came back to Turfloop to pass on its skills to
Although no one at Turf Radio receives a salary, the experience of working at a radio station has already been hugely beneficial in improving students’ skills in media, finance, public relations and management.
“The radio station has restored people’s sense of value in life,”Mkhari says. “Something like radio is seen as belonging to an elite — and this gives them a sense of pride in owning