WE upgrade last week’s tips to our discussion this week. This is due to overwhelming response to the article received.
Very little broadcast material reaches the air without first having been written down.
This is because of the technical nature of radio production, strict time limits observed by most stations and the fact that good extemporaneous speaking at the microphone is a rare skill.
For some kinds of broadcasting, such as the documentary and drama, a script is almost always essential.
The producer is concerned with radio script, sometimes as the author and always as the editor of a broadcast.
Radio writing differs from writing for publication imprint because the medium is different. Broadcasting is a form of living publication.
It is not static but something which moves forward in present time. This calls for a different approach – a difference in style.
The reader of a newspaper or magazine can select or reject paragraphs or whole stories as the fancy takes him. When he is not clear in his understanding of the author’s meaning he can always re-read.
This is not so of radio. The listener has to take everything as it comes or not listen at all.
When he is unclear, he has no means of referring back to clarify a point.
A radio-script writer must, therefore, seek to hold the listener’s rapt attention and go to considerable pains to ensure that the meaning is clear and understandable at every stage of a talk or story as it progresses.
Another distinctive characteristic of radio writing is that things heard on the radio appear to the listener to be happening now.
A broadcast is not a report of something past and gone – even the act of news reading is something taking place at the same time as it is heard.
Above all, radio writing is writing for the spoken word and everyday speech should be the guide to the words we use and the manner in which we use them.
In talking with one another we use familiar words. We assemble what we have to say in short phrases and seldom put our ideas together in the kind of lengthy paragraphs which we may write.
We put forward our ideas directly, not cluttered with small details nor involved in rambling parenthesis.
IWAVE
There is a new radio station on the Copperbelt airwaves of Chingola. It is called IWAVE, broadcasting on 90.1FM.
IWAVE Radio, a commercial radio station, although housed in Chingola, begun broadcasting across the Copperbelt Province, Kasumbalesa and some parts of North-Western Province on September 1, 2014.
It is a contemporary radio station that has significantly incorporated women and young adults.
Programming approach is such that it focuses on influencing the widest audience possible due to key roles that women and young adults play in society.
Emphasising on women, for they have the largest acquisition of goods and services, whereas the young adult group falls into the category of being a fast-growing consumer group hungry for new products and services.
The studio is located on plot 108, 14th Street.
KOMBONI RADIO
From Lusaka came a concern over Komboni Radio’s manner of presentation, that on Wednesday, August 27, 2014, BFLOW was on air presenting what seemed like a Ministry of Community Development sponsored programme on gender-based violence.
It was the manner of BFLOW’s presentation and language the listener thought was misleading and that he sounded like he did not know what he was talking about.
After BFLOW signed off, MOZEGATER and SHIMASTER took over without introducing themselves, only to start with crude jokes to the extent of insulting.
Radio, no matter where and who could be running it, must adhere to ethics that govern broadcasting services world over, because of its spontaneous way of communicating to the masses.
That means whatever is broadcast, either good or sensible, will instantly get to the listeners, some of who will believe it is right.
The more radio stations broadcast sensible things that reach listeners’ ears, the more positive their minds become, while the more they broadcast wrong stuff, the more they  corrupt listeners.
It is, therefore, prudent for radio station managers and presenters alike to strive to be above board, and realise the grave responsibility on their hands.
KNS Radio
KNS Radio broadcasts from Kabwe on 107 FM. It is one of the two reliable radio stations after Maranatha. Other radio stations can hardly be picked.
We are told that KNS reads news items seemingly picked from other media word for word, but forget to attribute them to the sources.
Maybe KNS needs to start attributing the news stories they read to their sources as is the norm in broadcasting. Failure to attribute source of news implies that the station sourced such.
CHIMWEMWE
This newly-born radio station in Ndola is slowly gaining ground, except the test identification of the radio station repeated a Boyz II Men ‘Whole My Life’ song more than once.
It is understandable that there will be ‘teething’ problems among horny broadcasters and the station’s technical staff in the initial stages, but the situation could improve as they grow.
And could it be that ‘The Joyous Voice’ slogan heard on the stations is the official one? Otherwise, much as they test-transmit, they should also popularise their slogan.
RCV
One follower of this column asked which Mwale was the picture used on this column last week. Was it Humphrey or Zondi Mwale, as the two Mwales were mentioned?
We, hereby, clarify that it was that of Zondi Mwale, RCV listeners’ Early Morning prayer partner.
For comments, observations and contributions: jackmwewa@gmail.com – 0955115777