THE RADIO SCENE IN BARBADOS
BAJAN WIRELESS AS MONITORED BY THE WIRELESS WAFFLER FEBRUARY 2001
UPDATE WITH REVISIONS COURTESY OF SITE VISITOR SIMON VICTOR (RESIDENT OF BARBADOS) AUGUST 2001
My wife sprung a very pleasant surprise for my birthday this year. I was told to pack my swimming trunks, shorts and clothes for a warm place, and book 10 days off work. Little did I realise, until it was revealed on the train to Gatwick, that we were to go to such an exotic location. I was also advised that I may also find some interesting radio there as well. This made me thing initially that it was going to be America. Just as well it wasn't because in February Barbados is hot and dry.
Facts about the radio scene
There are currently three organisations responsible for radio:
Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation which is Government controlled and has an address of PO Box 900, Bridgetown, Barbados.
They run: CBC RADIO on 900 Khz and LIBERTY FM on 98.1 MHz - all of these services carry commercials and music, but a proportion of talk and feature programmes.
Barbados Broadcasting Service which is a commercial broadcaster and has an address of Astoria, St George, Barbados
They run: BBS-FM on 90.7 MHz and Faith FM, a religious station, on 102.1 MHz.
Starcom Network Inc is a commercial company who also run a very comprehensive news service on all of their stations.
They run Voice of Barbados on 92.9 MHz and Hott FM on 95.3 MHz. They also run Love FM s one of the best stations I have heard for a long time. Gospel 790, a religious broadcaster is also part of the Network.
Other stations heard
Radio St Lucia (self explanatory from the neighbouring island) on 657 KHz
Two stations from nearby South America? With some good music on 1116 KHz and 1143 KHz, and with announcements in a foreign tongue.
I expected to hear some American stations by night but the apartment we were staying in suffered from quite a bit of interference due to the air conditioning and ceiling fans. I did hear one at around 7am in the morning and believe that it identified as WEWN news radio.
General comments:
Radio in Barbados seems to be based on the American system whereby they have a different spacing between the am radio stations. This means if you use a digital radio from the uk, you can be listening to some stations on one of the sidebands, and this makes it sound out of tune. The worst and probably only example of this was Radio St Lucia on 657 am which was a superb station with a programme play list similar to Capital Gold/Magic FM in London. Radio St Lucia could only be picked up on the beach without a buzzing interference, and you could easily detect that you were listening off channel. Some Sony and other communication receivers have switches which switch the spacing between channels. If I ever go to America I am going to have to choose my receiver carefully.
We were right on the coast and some of the FM stations were rather difficult to pick up. I am not sure if this was due to the electricity in the flat. I find the 110v system employed there most peculiar. I used to think that Dutch and French wiring was unusual but the plug tops are minute there. Mind you they must stand a chance of surviving an electric shock, in the UK 240v is fatal! I also noticed a light electrical buzz every 20 to 30 seconds on many of the FM signals - thankfully the mini disk did not reproduce these. I also managed to find a part of the apartment which did not seem as susceptible to this. A friend who is interested in aircraft thinks it was some form of beacon in the near vicinity or radar.
I also observed two transmitter masts, in the hills above Fitts Village where we were staying. I saw at least three other transmitter sites when I was touring as well, very professionally rigged and guarded by fences. I have a camera with a film that is not yet finished, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that a shot I took of one set will come out. All of the mast structures I saw were mast painted with red and white paint, and bore a flashing light for aircraft on top.
All of the radio services carry advertisements. Unlike UK Radio, but very much like the offshore stations in the sixties, presenters quite often read out the adverts live on air. This in itself does not break up the continuity of the programmes, and also means that the announcer is heard quite regularly throughout the hour. Simon Victor suggests that this is because the people advertising cannot afford to pay for a recorded promotion. I am not too sure, I think that Radio London on 266 in the 60s used to sell these as part of a package deal. In UK radio they quite often do not speak for three or four records. There were as many regular advertisements for Guinness Beer as there was for the superb local tipple Mount Gay Rum.
There is a good balance of male and female announcers. I think that the reason for this is that some of the male Bajan's dialect is quite difficult to follow. Generally Bajans speak slowly, and the real tonic is that they seem to burst into uncontrollable laughter at the smallest thing. I do wish that we in the UK could be as happy as the people in this hot country.
Generally the technical side of the programmes is variable. The Bajan's do not seem to be adept at turning their radios off when they speak on a phone in which means there is echo on the voices during a phone in. During one phone in a caller's cockerel let out an ear-piercing crow which livened proceedings up considerably.
THE WAFFLER'S REVIEW OF RADIO STATIONS HEARD:
CBC Radio 900 am:
The station seems to play quite a lot of oldies, and carries cricket commentary by day. There was regular coverage of the test matches being played in Trinidad. The feed from the cricket ground was not as good quality as we get from Australia in the UK.
One technical feature of the music that they played from disc was the incredible amount of wow and flutter. On one evening show in which a wide range of 50s and 60s music from the UK and America was played the announcer apologised for the quality. At other times of the day the same type of quality went out without any comment.
Gospel 790 am:
This station carrys a comprehensive news service and also carries sports news. They read death announcements and details of funerals over sombre music. They also carry adverts for non-religious products. I heard a very lively broadcaster doing a reggae gospel music programme, and was most impressed. As I have said before I am not sure who runs this station.
Hot 95.3 FM
Simon Victor reports that this station is tipped towards the 16-35 age group, so they will be expected to play lots of chart music as this is what people want to hear mostly.
Breakfast show: Run by a female announcer with a deep voice. The part of the show I monitored on the 25th February (Sunday) contained a high proportion of chart sounds, there did seem to be a tip towards rap style of music. The tunes were played back to back, sometimes three in a row. I am not sure whether this is the station's normal format. Simon explained that the rap session was just a choice of a particular DJ. At times when they do not get mass audiences each DJ is given a slot in the format to play music of their choice. This is opposed to half hour slots of each genre on peak broadcast times. The weekend in the UK is a time when the show formats are different, unfortunately the world over station often play 3 tunes in a row and it makes station identification difficult. It must also mean some people tune out of the programme quickly. In the half hour I listened they also managed to put out two sets of adverts. These were for a local goods and dances. The overall sound of the station was fast and the sound highly compressed - rather like Capital FM in London.
Liberty FM 98.1 FM
This station seems to run a variety of programmes, and has a passion for jingles which say "a better variety of music". I did hear them play several 30 minute to 1 minute bursts of jingles and on air promotions for themselves - great anorak material!
One specialist progamme was titled "African Top Hits" and this featured a wide variety of African and World specialist music on CD.
This station is Government controlled, and like the BBC in London, run the national lottery. This lottery is run under the name of "Nuff Cash". It seemed to run on the hour on Saturday, every hour. There is a sound rather like the lottery balls in the UK and then a female announcer gives the results.
Love FM
This station really is one of the better music stations for us oldies. They play "love" tunes both up to date and older.
I really misheard the names of the presenters and I have used Simon's email to correct the information below.
The real jewel in their crown is the "Honey and Nut Breakfast Show", which is run by a female announcer called Gainelle Marshall (Spelling?) and a male announcer called KB Clean. They do a tongue in cheek style of broadcasting, quoting from and commenting on newspaper articles and other events. They also have the "Market Vendor" every day in the morning, and it is repeated in the evening. This man is deliberately outrageous, and the announcer KB Clean and him are rolling about with laughter in the end, and so was I listening to it. The show also carries regular news and weather updates in between all of the fun. If we had something of this magnificence in the UK we would all arrive at work with a smile on our face.
Voice of Barbados 92.9 FM
"Tell it Like it is": an afternoon phone in hosted by a lady, I did not hear her name anywhere in the show. It was quite difficult to understand what some of the callers were saying, mainly due to the local dialect. Subjects I heard discussed ranged from rat infestation in Barbados to cricket.
Simon reports that this station also plays a variety of talk shows. About 70 percent of the programmes are call in shows; 15 percent with announcers talking; the rest is music.
If you have any further information on Radio in Barbados to offer please use the comments and email section of the site and another update will follow!
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