A colleague and mate of mine, Buhle (@buhlebonga on Twitter), questioned the other day why Durban doesn’t have it’s own talk radio station. It stemmed from, I believe, people questioning the quality of the SABC’s talk station, SAfm – and, yes, the quality is pretty damn terrible. Also, there are regional talk stations in other parts of the country - 702 and Cape Talk among them – that are pretty damn good.
So, why doesn’t Durban have it’s own talk radio station? I know the answer: all Durbanites talk about is the weather. It’s true – and you know it.
When it’s raining, people go on about it. When it’s cold, people rant about it. When it’s hot, people talk about how hot it is. When it’s windy, people bestow upon anyone who will listen the previously unknown virtues of the wind and how it messes up with people’s hair or something like that. You get the point.
Hey, look, it's raining in Durban. Let's have a 5 million hour conversation about it...
My question is this: why do we have nothing else to talk about? Are we so disinterested in the city itself, its politics, its nightlife, its beaches, its buildings, its music scene, its comedy scene, its media, its people and its positioning as the country’s sports hub that we don’t find these things worth talking about? I just don’t understand it.
Our desire to talk about the weather is why we don’t have a talk radio station. it would be boring. Think of the name. Durban FM: all the weather, all the time. It’s boring. It’s bland. It’s a waste of time.
All I can hope is that I don’t become one those people that speaks constantly about the weather, that bases hours-long conversations on the rain, sun, cloud, wind, whatever, that happens to be around.
It’s simple: there will be weather today. It will change at some point. Move on. Swiftly.
Don’t let me become one of those Durban weather people. Please.
When i was a deejay on community radio in Secunda we spoke of the weather in Durban as a topic of discussion.The reason Durban doesnt have have its own radio station is because it will be hijacked
Yes political parties have hundreds of stations to use and as soon as I put in a business plan in 2001 to start a community radio station in Pinetown I was disqualified because my board of directors was made up of one black partner and the rest were whites and Indians.
So I looked at the possiblity of doing 2 hour pirate broadcasts but the fm frequency is so clogged with African stations that , wait for it broadcast in english and bad english that its indiciative of the way ICASA monitors poor radio broadcasting
The is a way to do pirate broadcasts just google it and take your chances