SPREADING HEALTHY MESSAGE BY ANTHONY THANASAYAN, AIR RAVES, THE STAR

It's very encouraging that local radio stations are showing concern and responsibility by airing programmes related to health issues. Programmes on health and disability dominated the airwaves on at least two radio stations last week.

World Parkinson’s Day (WPD) on April 11 was a major highlight on the Bernama News Agency’s radio station, Radio24. The round-the-clock broadcaster from Kuala Lumpur featured a live interview with neurologist Dr Norlinah Mohamed Ibrahim last Wednesday.

Celebrity health and fitness expert Kevin Zahri revealed interesting tips on ERA FM.

Aired for two hours from 8pm, the doctor spoke at length about the medical aspects of the disease. Parkinson’s disease (PD), incidentally, is a progressive and degenerative condition of the nervous system. Her talk was conducted in Bahasa Malaysia.

Whilst the programme did its part to raise some public awareness about PD, I thought that there was too much focus on the disease and its negative effects. My concern was that some of the cold medical facts that were disclosed on the show might have unwittingly frightened away some listeners.

But Radio24 had more up its sleeve. Things were much better the next day, when the station conducted another live interview with a PD patient and caregiver. The speakers were from the top brass of the Malaysian Parkinson Disease Association in Kuala Lumpur (MPDA).

The studio guests spoke candidly about their real life experiences. Their ultimate message: There is life after Parkinson’s!

Earlier in the morning for WPD, Radio24’s correspondent Tan Su Lin presented an excellent and timely pre-recorded report on PD and what it was all about. The brief segment lasted about five minutes. It featured audio clips from the same guest neurologist and Sara Lew, president of the 14-year old MPDA.

Meanwhile, celebrity health and fitness expert Kevin Zahri was ERA FM’s live guest for World Health Day on April 7. The author of Fitness 24/7 engaged listeners on the Airtime Management and Programming’s BM broadcaster at 8.30am – a most opportune moment to catch rush hour audiences.

Also joined by ERA’s announcers Nana, Kieran and Adi on the Pagi@ERA show, Kevin revealed interesting tips on how listeners could effectively manage their health and fitness to suit our Malaysian lifestyles.

Touching on favourite foods such as nasi lemak and teh tarik, for instance, the health and fitness adviser pointed out that our love for such food and drinks should not serve as an excuse for anyone for not keeping healthy and fit. The morning discussion with Kevin on Pagi@Era proved to be a lively and fun topic for everyone.

Here are a couple of great tips that Kevin offered to listeners on how not only to keep their tummies trim, but also to help keep one awake and alert all day.

Rice – As a general rule, the ideal serving should be the size of one’s fist regardless of the size of the person.

Stairs – Use them in place of lifts. It always makes a difference!

Wednesday April 9, 2008

Game creator and more

By ANTHONY THANASAYAN

Rush hour morning listeners who tuned in to Red Breakfast show on Red FM were treated to some interesting guests and curious topics last week.

The FM station operated by The Star conducted an interview on Friday with Shane Walters, one of the creators of the Lara Croft Tomb Raider game.

Then it was the turn for two stress management foreign professors in the studio to share some of their insights into how one could effectively de-stress oneself from modern day stress factors such as those caused by Facebook and TV show American Idol.

“Sexy pharmacists” was the morning chat topic on Thursday on the weekdays show aired from 6am to 10am.

Local celebrities Harith Iskander and Ida Nerina played temporary hosts on Wednesday in a segment of the Red Breakfast with regulars Will and Shaz.

The start of the weekday on Monday featured wedding company DreamWorks’ specialists giving out ideas to listeners on how to plan their dream wedding for just under RM10,000.

However, Tuesday was really the highlight of the week. Astrologer Madam Zorra who could foretell the future simply by reading people’s faces and their birth dates helped to dispel any dark clouds in the lives of listeners that morning.

Red FM invited them to e-mail or SMS in their birth dates – including a picture of themselves if they could – so that Madam Zorra could reveal some of their secrets on the live broadcast.

A pretty risky thing, if you ask me. However, Shaz sportingly not only offered to have her predictions read on the air, but also asked Zorra to read her children’s future as well.

A foreigner listening in from Italy via the Internet also sent in his picture and birthday details to Zorra who promptly read out his predictions to him.

As for Shaz, all I can recall Zorra saying about the deejay was that she is a “volatile” and “difficult to handle” person.

Nonetheless, Red FM did good with Madam Zorra who captivated listeners.

Let’s hope that this can become a regular feature on the radio station to make our mornings interesting.

Madam Zorra, by the way, was also an excellent speaker and not microphone-shy at all.

Tuesday also happened to be April Fool’s day. I was tuned in from dawn hoping to hear some pranks for the day – or at least stories about it – on our broadcasters but there was nothing on it.

Apart from the usual pranks played by Hitz.fm’s JJ and Rudy in their Gotcha segments, there was nothing done specifically for April 1.

Having said that, however, one of the Gotcha segments was truly hilarious.

One of the announcers rang up a divorce lawyer and pretended that he was having a fight with his wife at home at that very moment, with the sound of glass breaking in the background.

The special-effects was created by one of the Morning Crew deejays. The announcer on the telephone with the lawyer did some great acting on his part. As for the lawyer, he was amazingly cool throughout the conversation.

SORRY! NO AIR RAVES TODAY. COLUMN WILL RESUME NEXT WEEK

ELECTIONS STILL A HOT TOPIC ON THE AIRWAVES

Still a hot topic

AIR RAVES BY ANTHONY THANASAYAN

MORE than a week after our general election on March 8, Malaysian politics is still a hot item on many radio stations around the world.

Among several of Radio Australia’s (RA) follow-up stories on our recent polls, the latest was a special interview programme.

The Melbourne-based broadcaster’s Asia Pacific show spoke to a number of our local experts from varied backgrounds.

The interviews, which were conducted separately, lasted four and a half minutes. It was aired last Thursday.

The topic revolved around what RA described as PAS’ “huge gains” during the elections.

“For the first time (the Islamic party succeeded in) pushing (itself) into urban middle-class areas (of the country),” added the Australian international broadcaster.

RA’s presenter Bill Bainbridge spoke to five people.

They were PAS MP for Taman Titiwangsa in Kuala Lumpur Dr Lo’ Lo’ Datuk Hj Mohd Ghazali; Dr Norani Othman, Professor and Principal Research Fellow at the Institute for Malaysian and International Studies in Bangi, Selangor; and Tricia Yeoh, Senior Research Analyst at the Centre for Public Policy Studies in Kuala Lumpur.

The other two were also from our nation’s capital: Rev Dr Herman Shastri, executive secretary of the Christian Federation of Malaysia, and Mohamad Dehalan, a Kampung Baru resident and retired town planner.

According to Mohamad Dehalan, the reason why many voters decided to switch over to the Opposition was because they were fed up with the level of corruption in the country.

He also added that whilst he personally would like to see Syariah laws being enacted in Malaysia, he realised that would never happen because a two-thirds majority is required in Parliament in order to achieve it.

Yeoh opined that the fear of Islamisation was what prompted the Chinese and Indians to significantly shift their votes.

On the fears of PAS pushing their conservative brand of Islam, Rev Shastri pointed out that moderates in the party ought to know that “the path to political power is to emphasise their anti-corruption agenda; not strict Islamic laws.”

Meanwhile, the 30-minute swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi at the National Palace on March 10 was carried live by RTM’s Klasik Nasional FM.

Traxx FM conducted a five-minute live crossover round-up of the ceremony when everything was over.

It was a disappointment, however, that RTM’s English radio station did not broadcast the event.

Not only was the event more than worthy of a live transmission, but airing it in English would have benefited many English-speaking listeners in appreciating the details of the ceremony that transpired.

Finally, kudos to Radio 24’s recent coverage of our 12th general election which helped to make the event even more special for radio listeners.

The station which is operated by Bernama presented a lot of insights and views on our voting process.

Its crossovers to the polling booths across the country were generally kept lively and straight to the point.

12th General Elections - Top News On World Radio Broadcasts

World Radio Stations On Our Recent General Elections

Top world news

By ANTHONY THANASAYAN

The winds of change that swept across the country, which shocked and awed the entire nation last weekend, was also strongly felt by many radio broadcasters around the globe.

“Badawi fails to get a two-thirds majority” was the top world news bulletin on All India Radio (AIR).

The New Delhi broadcaster made the announcement last Sunday, a day after Malaysians went to the polls to pick a new government.

Describing the 12th General Elections as one of Malaysia’s ruling coalition’s worst electoral performances, AIR told its worldwide audience that the Barisan Nasional had “lost control of four state governments and failed to win a two-thirds majority in Parliament for the first time since 1969”.

AIR pointed out that the polls results had even “raised questions about the political future of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi”.

It also mentioned Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu’s parliamentary seat loss, describing him as “Malaysia’s lone ethnic Tamil Minister”.

“The elections were held amidst complaints of racial inequality by ethnic Indians and rise in crime and corruption”, concluded the South Asia broadcaster.

China Radio International (CRI) from Beijing called the poll outcome “a setback for the BN”.

Radio Australia (RA) commented that “Malaysia’s opposition parties had pulled off a historic election performance posing the first challenge to the BN in five decades”.

The Melbourne-based broadcaster added that while “Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi’s coalition government will stay on in office, for the first time since independence in 1957 there will be a sizeable opposition in Parliament”.

RA said former Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim described the phenomenal event as a ”defining moment in Malaysia’s history, and a big success for the opposition”.

The Australian radio station also quoted Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s accusation of the Prime Minister of “destroying” the coalition, and suggesting that Badawi quit his post.

Washington DC’s Voice of America broadcast’s Luis Ramirez from Kuala Lumpur – speaking to local analysts in Malaysia – narrowed down the BN’s shocking poor performance to complaints of complacency and corruption.

Quoting James Chin, a politics professor at Kuala Lumpur’s Monash University, Ramirez said that the BN ought to look for pragmatic ways to rebuild support or face extinction.

“The BN government has heard the message loud and clear,” Chin told the VOA. “(Now) they (must) do something about it (if) they (want) to win the next election,” he concluded.

Note: This article appeared on Friday. Air Raves will resume on Wednesdays from next week.

Election In The Air

News & Features, The Star, Wednesday March 5, 2008

Election coverage on air

Air Raves by ANTHONY THANASAYAN

MALAYSIANS go to the polls on Saturday. The exercise is to decide who gets to govern the nation over the next five years.

The run-up to our general election (Malaysia’s 12th to date) this weekend, meanwhile, seems to be getting good coverage on Radio24.

The round-the-clock bilingual broadcaster in Bahasa Malaysia and English which is operated by the Bernama News Agency in Kuala Lumpur is currently running a special two-hour weekday talk show on the elections.

Named Hello Pilihan Raya and aired only in Bahasa Malaysia, the programme can be heard today until Friday at 8pm.

Listeners will not only be able to know more about the many political and social issues in the country but also acquire a better background understanding at the end of the shows.

These will be provided by the many prominent political personalities who are invited to proffer their views in the studio. The guests range from political analysts to ex-politicians and observers.

On Saturday listeners can expect to hear voting and result updates from what the station describes as “hot” locations around the country.

These include the states of Kelantan, Terengganu, Sabah, Sarawak, Kedah, Perlis and Perak.

Radio24’s anchors will also be able to rely on the support of Bernama’s own team of news journalists when presenting their live-crossovers and news reports on the broadcast.

Whilst the bad news is that Radio24 can only be heard at the present time by listeners in the Klang Valley on the frequency of FM 93.9MHz – the good news is that people living outside the stipulated area can tune in to the FM broadcaster via the Internet. All one has to do is to got to www.radio24.com.my.

On Radio24’s homepage, web surfers will also find the latest news updates on the general election as a tasty treat.

Recently, quite a few independent bloggers apparently gave the thumbs up to Radio24 for having conducted a poll last month where it was revealed that 80% of its respondents felt that blogs did not jeopardise the democratic process of our nation.

The results of the poll findings were broadcast over Radio24. Well done!

And speaking of alternative views, Melbourne’s Radio Australia ran a news feature last week on our elections.

The Asia Pacific segment of the international broadcaster highlighted a number of interesting topics in the country by speaking to Tian Chua, the information chief for the opposition Keadilan party and social anthropologist Professor Shamsul Amri Baharuddin, Director of the Institute of Ethnic Studies from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

Despite living in the cyber age, the writer insists that radio still provides a unique window on the world. When he isn't scanning bandwidths, he helps to raise awareness of positive living with pets through his organisation, Petpositive (Malaysian Animal-Assisted Therapy for the Disabled and Elderly Association).