Wednesday 27 February 2008

Nomination Day Coverage On Radio


Keeping up to date

Air Raves, StarTwo, The Star

LAST Sunday was certainly no ordinary day for Malaysians. It was the much anticipated nomination day for our political candidates of the respective parties ahead of next week’s exciting 12th General Elections in our country.

And Red fm was there for its listeners. From 9am until 1pm Red, which is operated by The Star, presented as frequently as four updates each hour on what was happening over at many of the nomination centres throughout the nation.

The FM broadcaster had six radio deejays posted on the ground in order to bring the action direct into the homes of listeners of Red.

The updates were presented as live crossover reports. Each report lasted for about two minutes.

The deejays not only spoke about the nominated candidates but also conducted brief interviews with some of the people at the centres. Listeners were able to feel the mood of the people in each venue this way.

Fans of Red are advised to stick with the broadcaster for more news on the March 8 Elections as the days get nearer. Meanwhile, the announcement of the election date a fortnight ago on Feb 14 witnessed many of our media scrambling to get the news to Malaysians and the world through radio, television and SMS.

However, sometimes being the first may not always make one the best – as Radio24 obviously discovered.

The station’s anchor in the studio was clearly not prepared about what to do should a delay in a scheduled event occur.

The problem started when Election Commission Chairman Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman took a longer time to make his announcement. As a result, the 24-hour news station’s listeners ended up not knowing what was happening for a good 10 minutes or so.

Whilst television viewers could at least see what was going on, radio listeners could not. All we heard were voices mumbling. Radio24’s anchor should have intervened at once and criss-crossed back to the studio to apologise for the glitch.

Then, crossover back when everything was ready.

The same day was also Valentine’s Day. Whilst many of the English radio stations were pretty much in a

lovey-dovey mood all morning, some broadcasters tried to be different and downplay – or even dismiss the occasion.

Hitz.fm promoted “Single Awareness Day” which fell on the same day.

Red fm’s Shaz boldly proclaimed that Valentines over the recent years had become rather overrated.