With the awards show in the third year, the 2012 MTN Radio Awards, which held its glittering gala ceremony about the evening of Saturday, 14 April, saw many changes from previous years by having several new categories for the awards. While some proved to be more interesting than exciting, others, like the inclusion of dedicated categories for community, public broadcasting service (PBS) and campus radio stations, revealed an intriguing pattern. The truth is, as the awards were being announced for the night, guests would have noticed the popularity of two particular stations within their respective categories - Radio Islam in community radio, and Ukhozi FM in the PBS category (each station received eight awards apiece during the period of the evening). In addition, both stations were the sole recipients of the My Station award, made to incorporate the votes of listeners in the awards.
With the formal proceedings concluded, station representatives dashed on celebrate their success - however i was left with one burning question: clearly these stations are becoming something right, but what exactly is their secret to success? In accordance with Radio Islam's Ismael Variava, it boils down to simple station philosophies: "Hard work, dedication, support structures and community support," he lists.
Attributing the station's success at the awards both to better work being carried out by the station and better recognition through the awards itself, he adds that a strong audience relationship was also a key factor. As for nurturing this relationship, Variava says that the station holds to many strategies - "Make them feel section of the radio, take into account listeners' feedback, and undertake projects relevant to the community."
Station manager at Ukhozi FM, Bonga Mpanza, agrees. "The driving force has always been the fact that we know that radio is for and about our listeners. We always make our listeners feel area of the station, their opinion counts and that we never talk above their heads."
This tie on the listening community is a sentiment also echoed by MTN Radio Awards CEO, Lance Rothschild, in the run-up to this year's awards. "We're listening to what has been done in the listeners' ears, what is being shipped to the listeners' mind space, and that's why is good radio," he emphasised. "That's what makes people say 'wow, that's my station'. The air need to strive to build that absolute bridge bewteen barefoot and shoes and the listener."
Talking about digging in the community and PBS radio categories on the awards, both Mpanza and Variava agree that change was for the better, and gave more stations the ability to be acknowledged. "This afforded us being a public broadcasting service a chance to compete fairly and really distinguish that which you stand for, as opposed to other stations," says Mpanza.
Having gone from just one award in 2011 to eight this season, Mpanza adds that the station's increased recognition in the awards show was also the consequence of an active effort to better promote its work from the industry. "We did not enter numerous categories as we did this coming year, and we have also put a lot of effort in [over] the past year to revisit and revamp our shows, content and entirely the station's brand. We felt it had been about time to show ourselves and obtain that recognition from our peers along with the radio industry as a whole."
Regardless of anything else, the wealth of recognition consideration to both Radio Islam and Ukhozi FM has inspired both stations to strive even more for excellence - a target that the stations will be taking to the next year. "There is a huge amount of talent around," says Variava, "and for [Radio Islam] to continue with its success, it will have to work about the formula that was part of [this year's] success - that is certainly, teamwork, dedication and innovation."
"Radio is beginning to change, the world is getting smaller and that's the space we are playing in as being a radio station; but this doesn't mean we ought to lose focus of who we're as a brand. We know the things that work for us and how we can make use of this to further maintain our position as South Africa's biggest station," ends Mpanza.
With both Ukhozi FM and Radio Islam vowing to further improve their entries and up your competitors in 2013, it would seem that PBS and community radio are increasingly sharing the spotlight with commercial radio - often known as the 'cool kid' of the radio space. Is this perhaps the resurrection needed to encourage more appeal being attributed to PBS, community and campus radio?
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One of the most common Internet stereo is Pickradio where you can find various radio stations .
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