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New Medium Wave/AM licences in South Africa
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Hi everyone.
Not UK radio related but I thought it might be of interest of some but the new MW/AM licences have been published in South Africa. TalkSPORT (I believe similar to the UK version) will broadcast on 540kHz from Johannesburg and LM Radio (those of a certain age will remember this one) will broadcast on 702kHz with 100kW of power also from Johannesburg (www.lmradio.net). In Cape Town Magic 828 (no relation to the UK station) will broadcast, like LM Radio, music for the more mature listener.
Unfortunately Capital 604 has been refused an AM licence from Durban as it can't prove its financial stability.
Medium Wave radio in South Africa was dropped largely in the 1980s by the Apartheid regime to encourage people to buy cheap FM radios (and thus be unable to pick up stations from outside the country) so its good that its sort of making a comeback as these stations will have wide coverage especially in the evenings.
Link to the story :
http://themediaonline.co.za/2014/04/major-action-on-the-am-airwaves-as-icasa-grants-new-licences/
Not UK radio related but I thought it might be of interest of some but the new MW/AM licences have been published in South Africa. TalkSPORT (I believe similar to the UK version) will broadcast on 540kHz from Johannesburg and LM Radio (those of a certain age will remember this one) will broadcast on 702kHz with 100kW of power also from Johannesburg (www.lmradio.net). In Cape Town Magic 828 (no relation to the UK station) will broadcast, like LM Radio, music for the more mature listener.
Unfortunately Capital 604 has been refused an AM licence from Durban as it can't prove its financial stability.
Medium Wave radio in South Africa was dropped largely in the 1980s by the Apartheid regime to encourage people to buy cheap FM radios (and thus be unable to pick up stations from outside the country) so its good that its sort of making a comeback as these stations will have wide coverage especially in the evenings.
Link to the story :
http://themediaonline.co.za/2014/04/major-action-on-the-am-airwaves-as-icasa-grants-new-licences/
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Comments
As in the Indian DRM thread FM is good for cities but can be expensive to roll out to rural areas and India sees DRM as a low cost technology alongside AM. But AM sets are cheap and DRM sets currently expensive.
DAB+ with multiplexing might be more cost effective than FM for rural areas and low cost sets are becoming available. South Africa will be testing DAB+ but will take time to roll out, AM is available now but might be eventually be replaced by DAB+.
http://www.worlddab.org/news/south%20africa
Surprised Capital 604 with its history did not get enough backing, even perhaps from Global? But would it go with old or current music, and anyway AM quality is not so good for music?
DAB+ could be good for UK if BBC WS were allowed a channel ?
UTV impressive too for their cross-media activities - they publish a very successful weekly newspaper to back up TalkSport in the UK, called "Sport" and available free at sporting and leisure centres in UK ( and online ).
Cape Media's "Magic 828" of interest as David Capel emphasises that it is going to be a station that people want rather than one forced upon them by other people's ideas and agenda , your quoted article says. Sometimes a reverse of what seems to happen in the UK !
I read too in the article that over-35s were under-represented in SA - again somewhat of a reverse position to that in the UK ! A shame for the UK as we should be growing a young audience...
Interesting article and good luck to all concerned !
Someone in Durban told me that as well as the financial aspect Capital 604 lost their 'formerly oppressed group' backing as well. (I think all new licences must be partly backed by non-white groups to help balance out business ownership/black empowerment in the country) so even if they got backing from a UK group I don't think this would have made much difference to the outcome.
What's going to happen with existing JoBurg talk station, Talk Radio 702 ?
http://www.702.co.za/index.asp
Yes !, the main 'pop' music stations in each province, Highveld, KFM Cape Town, East Coast Radio, are all 'BBC Radio 1/Capital' style demographic. I've yet to find anything there (at least on FM) that is akin to Radio 2 ?
http://www.highveld.co.za/
http://www.kfm.co.za/
http://www.ecr.co.za/
They moved to two different FM frequencies (one for Jo'burg and the other for Pretoria) a couple of years ago but still call themselves 702. The Cape Town version CapeTalk is still on 567kHz I think?
There is Radio Today www.1485.org.za that are kind of like Radio 2 (they also carry BBC World Service programmes) but they are broadcasting on medium wave and people tell me that the signal is terrible even a few km away from the transmitter.
Ha, I see ! SA's version of Radio 210 then !! ;-)
Not much use then
Comes from their heritage of being SABC networks, that were privatised about 15-20 years ago I think ?
Yes it must have been around about 20 years now since the government sold them off. As a schoolboy living in Zimbabwe and then South Africa during the late 70s and 80s I can just about remember when in Jo'burg we had the English and Afrikaans service of Radio South Africa and the local station was Radio Highveld, all those in MW. If I remember correctly FM was reserved for the African language stations. Radio (like TV) was dreadful in those days and I was lucky enough to have a shortwave radio so I could listen to the BBC
I find this very surprising. I always thought that South Africa left AM completely.
More or less, WRTH lists 2 SABC Home Service stations, 100kw and 2kw, 1 25kw private station in Cape Town and 6 of the 140 community stations are on AM. Everything else, SABC, private and community broadcaster is on FM. Wonder how many have AM receivers.
Well, the cars do for starters !! Last time I was there (a year ago) I drove a Toyota
hire car that had an FM/AM and DAB radio ! I don't think there's a single DAB TX in service in SA, in fact on the entire continent ? Although it seems SABC had a test mux
for 13 years, that ceased four years ago ?
http://www.wohnort.org/DAB/southafrica.html#Pilot
http://www.worlddab.org/news/south%20africa