How Radio Links The Islands

Radio is the most effective and cost effective news and entertainment medium

for the islands of the Pacific.

By Jai Kumar

IN THE MAJORITY of developed countries television is now taken for granted as the prime means of trans mitting news, education and entertain ment; but for the bulk of the less developed nations of the South Pacific, radio re mains the main medium of information and entertainment.

The scattered geographical nature of the region’s island states makes radio the most effective and cost-effective medium. It plays a vital role in everyday life on remote islands and in many cases is those islands’ sole means of contact with the outside world. In most cases tele phones simply do not exist and shipping and airline services are of only minor value: neither are they as reliable, or as im mediate, as radio.

For these scattered island nations in times of emergency, radio becomes liter ally a lifeline. When a hurricane or flood strikes, radio is the only workable means of contact with administrators, relief serv ices or medical personnel. And it has a vi tal social function as well: while residents of cities and larger towns have the luxury of daily or weekly newspapers, the remote villager is totally dependent on radio for news from around the world as well as do mestic news. Radio is also firmly estab lished as the main source of entertainment.

Fiji

The Fiji Broadcasting Commission (FBC) provides a national AM service in Eng lish, Fijian and Hindustani, and has FM stations in Suva and Lautoka. The FBC broadcasts under the callsign “Radio Fiji” and has repeater stations across the coun try, enabling it to provide a full coverage to smaller and less populated islands from sam to 11 pm on weekdays and to mid night on weekends.

The FBC is semi-commercial, deriv ing half its income from advertising and the rest from government grants. Fiji has a fully commercial radio station, FM96, which began operation in 1985. FM96’s programs are broadcast in English only but the music is mixed, with Fijian and Hindi songs played on a regular basis. FM96 has news bulletins but lacks national coverage its broadcasts can only be picked up in Suva, Lautoka and surrounding areas.

While Radio Fiji is free from govern ment control, its commissioners are government appointees; their main brief is to provide policy guidelines to the net work’s management.

Tonga

Radio in Tonga is under the control of the Tonga Broadcasting Commission (TBC), whose main studio is located in the capi

tal, Nuku’alofa. The TBC’s powerful transmitter reaches all of the South Pa cific under the callsign “Call of the Friendly Islands”.

Western Samoa

Western Samoa’s radio station 2AP has studios at Apia and broadcasts in English and Samoan. It began operation in 1948 and is totally government funded and owned. However, it does accept some ad vertising. Radio is under the direction of the Communications Ministry.

Kiribati And Tuvalu

The island group formerly known as the Gilbert and Ellice Islands has separate ra dio networks. Radio Kiribati is funded by the Government and operates under the Broadcasting and Publications Authority.

Its programs are mostly in Kiribati, but news is also broadcast in English. Radio Kiribati derives some revenue from ad vertising, mostly on a local basis.

Radio Tuvalu operates from Funafuti and is an arm of the Information Depart ment. It broadcasts mainly in the Tuval uan language, but news broadcasts are also in English.

Solomon Islands

Broadcasting in the Solomon Islands is administered by the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC), an in dependent statutory body. Broadcasts are in English and Pidgin, and the SIBC’s stu dios and transmitting facilities have re cently been modernised.

Papua New Guinea

The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) came into being in December 1973, taking over the functions of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, which had op erated radio broadcasting in PNG since the end of World War 11.

The NBC’s main stations are in Port Moresby, but there is a number of regional stations catering to provincial audiences.

Problems And Potential

Radio will continue to be a vital source of information and entertainment for Pacific island nations in the foreseeable future.

While television is just around the corner for many island governments, it would be prohibitively expensive to provide local broadcasting services and most will have to rely on imported news and entertain ment ... with the host of social problems raised by such “media colonialism”.

Even with the advent of satellite serv ices from Australia, New Zealand and the United States, television remains largely a dream for most South Pacific states sim

ply because it is economically not a viable proposition and is unlikely to be so without massive (and wasteful) subsidies.

In that light, island radio broadcasters are fully concious of their responsibility of providing more and better news services.

However, their greatest problems are lack of trained personnel and lack of adequate funding to maintain existing networks, develop new areas of coverage and install transmitters powerful enough to span the often great distances involved.

Most islands networks provide a do mestic news service and a reasonable cov erage of local news but for world news they must rely on Radio Australia’s Pacific Reports and relay Radio Australia’s cur rent-affairs programs or provide edited versions of these to their listeners. While Radio New Zealand has had ambitions of making inroads in this area, its effective ness has been held in check by low-pow ered transmitters.

Perhaps the region’s greatest commu nications problem, at least as far as radio is concerned, is that while most stations can obtain news easily from London, Moscow, Sydney or New York through Radio Australia, the BBC and the Voice of America, they are unable to learn what’s happening to island neighbours.

Radio executives and administrators have wrestled with the problem at every meeting, deciding without fail to press for the establishment of a regional news serv ice and to seek national and international support for this badly needed resource. But because of the cost involved (and a host of regional political rivalries) the news scheme has remained firmly on the draw ing board, to Radio Australia’s continued advantage.

Radio Australia has succeeded in is lands radio, and has maintained its firm grip on news services, because of its pow erful transmitters (which broadcast 24 hours a day to the Pacific) and its network of reliable stringers.

Radio New Zealand also regards itself as a part of Pacific broadcasting, and claims to be better informed than Radio Australia about events in island nations.

However, because of its low-powered transmitters it cannot provide an effective Pacific bulletin.

UNESCO and the Hans Seidel Foun dation of West Germany have now funded and established a Suva-based training and news exchange service known as “Pac broad”. This unit acts as a clearing house for islands news; each participating coun try files two stories each day by telex to Suva, where they are edited and compiled into a bulletin that is then redistributed to all radio stations without cost. □