TRYING to find out what’s happening on Radio Metro is a bit like trying to rea d the true mind of Communist China. Forget it. A simple request to their publi c relations department for a schedule took four days to be answered, and when it came it was but a skeletal construct. Repeated attempts in those four days to get hold of a public relations officer were doomed to failure as the switch board info rmed the Mail & Guardian that said officer was in a meeting – and no one else could help.
It must be said that Radio Metro is not alone in the idiotic habit of sending every single media person in the company to the moon for a few days of meeting s. Many private companies seem to think it’s a fun activity, too. Why they cal l it “public relations” I’ll never know. “Public frustrations” might be closer to the mark.
So, on the fifth day someone in the know – a producer called Christina Scott – finally called to talk about programming. It transpired that Lawrence Dube’s
Bush Telegraph is the only talk show and it takes place between 8pm and 9pm.
I might have known this earlier had it not been for the fact that every time I switched the radio on and tuned in to what I imagined was Metro, it took abou
t 15 to 30 minutes for the station to identify itself. By this time I was gatv ol and had other fish to fry.
Indeed, that’s one thing all the stations could learn from 702. They absolutel y must identify what the station is, who the presenter is and who the intervie w subject or fellow chatterer is. This should be done frequently. Otherwise li steners don’t have a clue what they’re listening to. Building an identity is w hat it’s all about.
The frequencies between 90 and 105FM are incredibly busy. A slight twitch of t he dial and you’re on to yet another mystery station. Even more alarming is wh en you switch the radio off on a particular station, and switch it on again t he next morning and you’re now listening to something else completely. (Or is that just my radio?)
The Independent Broadcasting Authority is dishing out three more frequencies i n the FM band. Nine stations have applied and we’ll know who’s getting them by the end of the month.
But back to Radio Metro. If you like their modern R’n’B music formula for most of the day, you’ll be happy. (A fair amount of off-key singing detected over
the past week would seem to indicate that this well might be running a bit dry – or else someone there has no ear for pitch.)
Otherwise, it’s Lawrence’s show, which is broken down differently on different nights of the week. It’s framed by news at 6pm and 8pm, sports phone-in/discu
ssion between 6pm and 7pm; Christina’s brief Behind the Scenes at 7pm; a phone -in between 7pm and 8pm, and a feature or phone-in between 8pm and 9pm.
On Tuesday night Metro was scheduled to host Enoch Sithole of SABC-TV between 7pm and 8pm to discuss listeners’ TV criticisms. On Wednesday night between 8p m and 9pm there’s always Dr Eve’s sex programme, which is hilariously straight forward. On Thursday from 6.15pm to 6.30pm it’s the Mail & Guardian’s turn to discuss one of their stories. At 6.30pm the Market Theatre has a spot of its o wn, and a debate on prescription vs illegal drugs was scheduled for between 7pm and 8pm on Monday.
“We’re the biggest English-speaking talk show in the country, with up to 3 mil lion people tuning in over a day,” says Christina. “But we have a floating fre quency. In Johannesburg it’s 96.4, in Durban it’s 93, in Cape Town it’s 91.7, 88.6 1and 100.5, depending where you are in relation to the mountain. Dependin g on where you are in South Africa, it ranges from 87.9 to 107.9.”
This week, watch out for the M&G’s Thursday night spot, on Ghetto Diaries, the new TV show that’s into its second season. On Tuesday from 7pm to 8pm Lawrenc
e talks to people from True Love Waits, a worldwide organisation promoting the practice of no sex before marriage. On Wednesday, Dr Eve goes into the frontl
ine by talking abortion with people from the Marie Stopes clinics.