The competition for an FM licence has begun in Cape Town, with former political prisoners pitted against black businessmen, writes Marion Edmunds
WHILE there are only two competitors for the licence for Cape Town’s first new FM commercial radio station, both have so much in their favour that the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) will find it hard to make a choice.
Radio P4/Zebra FM, a consortium of former political prisoners in conjunction with a Norwegian radio station, is vying against Cape Classic Hits FM, a local consortium led by Peter Jones, a man who makes it his job to push black commercial interests, and is known to have been a good friend of Steve Biko.
While Radio P4/Zebra FM is dedicating itself to jazz, Cape Classic Hits is aiming for a jazzy Cape Town sound, music liked by wealthy Capetonians between the ages of 20 and 45, and a dose of hard-hitting news.
On the face of it, Radio P4/Zebra FM is the most politically correct of the two applicants. Eighty percent of the consortium is owned by the Mokana Trust, which was set up for the benefit of ex-political prisoners, many of whom have failed to find a niche in new South African society.
The other 20% is owned by a Norwegian Radio Station, Radio P4 International AS, which was recently listed on the Norwegian Stock Exchange.
A member of the board of directors, John Nassel-Henderson, said should the application be successful, his group would have to negotiate funding to set up the radio station, possibly with Noraid, a Norwegian funding agency. The political prisoners are too poor to fund the setting up of the station itself.
Nassel-Henderson said Radio P4/Zebra FM hoped to employ ex-political prisoners at the station, should they show talent behind the mike or in the running of the radio station. Expertise and training would come from the Norwegian shareholder.
”We spent a lot of time working out how it should look and looking at real empowerment, because often the word empowerment has come to mean the same guys get rich over and over again,” said Nassel-Henderson.
This comment could be interpreted as a backhander at Nassel-Henderson’s opposition, Cape FM Classic Hits, partly owned by top black Capetonian businessmen and achievers. Capetonian Peter Jones is co-ordinating the application by Classic Hits and is the managing director of Mnyama Holdings, which owns 40% of the consortium.
Jones is confident of winning the race for the licence, thanks to his Cape Town-based movers and shakers. These include Khayelitsha-based businessman Sam Dube, president of the Black Management Forum, Gavin Pieterse, and Nombulelo Mkefa, executive director of the Community Peace Foundation.
”We are not trading on political sympathies. We are all people with a long history in political endeavour and we are selling competence and a local profile.” Jones said this week.
A Dublin-based company, Radio Investments, owns 20% of the consortium and would provide international expertise should Cape Classic Hits FM win.
The Irish company owns a radio station in Dublin called 98FM and four radio stations in Czechoslovakia. Jones says it will cost R8,5-million to launch the radio station with 39 staffers. They expect to have a news department along with DJs, entertainers, producers, managers and accountants. He adds that every shareholder will put up his or her percentage of the capital from the outset.
Already the tension between these two competitors is brewing with Nassel-Henderson accusing Cape Classic Hits FM of poaching their jazz idea.
‘There is a huge thirst for jazz in Cape Town, and even our competitors for the licence have realised this, and want to include jazz into their application now,” he said.
Jones said that they were looking for a jazzy, mellow sound, but was contemptuous of Radio P4/Zebra FM’s application on the grounds that the consortium was based in Johannesburg.
”Our application for a Cape Town radio station is the only one in front of the IBA which is driven by a truly home-grown team. The others are largely dependent on expertise from Johannesburg,” said Jones.
The IBA will also be awarding two medium- wave licences in Cape Town, apart from the one FMlicence. The contenders for the MW licences are Punt op Mediumgolf, an Afrikaans talk radio, with Boland Financial Services as one of the financial backers; World Sport, which includes the MoriboConsortium (Thebe Investments); Radio Discovery of the Property Limited Consortium; and Cape Talk, which is the Newshelf Consortium.