Cromatografía liquida de alta eficacia (HPLC)

National FM had live shows that allowed listeners in the different languages to pass greetings to their friends and relatives. These programmes could also be called musical request shows as audiences were allowed to request music after passing greetings. These programmes were similar to Radio Zimbabwe’s popular Kwaziso (Shona) or Ukubingelelana (Ndebele). Audiences used to write their requests on postcards that they would send to ZBC through the Post Office. The audiences would request around five songs to be played after the post card has been read. The post cards would be sorted in the record library and each would have one song selected. Sometimes the presenter would read two or three post cards whose writers would have selected the one similar song or album. It was the duty of the record librarians to select the songs and match the song and post cards.

Nowadays audiences call in to pass their greetings and request songs. They also send messages through the sms and the WhatsApp platforms. These messages are read and sometimes songs are played instantly while at times music is played after a number of messages or calls have been received. The greetings shows were each 55 minutes long and they were broadcast every day from 1200 to 1255 hours. The programmes were very popular in some languages while unpopular in other languages as sometimes there were no callers at all. In some sessions they got only one or two callers only. Sometimes callers who did not speak the languages would phone and the presenters would politely tell them to give a chance to the speakers of those languages. This was usually done off-air and the presenter used the languages of the callers who would have called. The music that was played was

selected mainly from the small indigenous languages, although sometimes callers chose songs that would have been selected by other participants.

Observation indicates that the Chewa greetings show (Tipatsanemoni) was very popular. The Chewa listeners were very active in calling and sending messages to the extent that the presenter sometimes ignored some calls. This was done in order to play music and allow the presenter to breath or to read messages. Chewa listeners were active in the programme because of their high population in the country and they are located near and in urban areas (Hachipola, 1998; Magwa, 2008; Ndlovu, 2009) where transmission was not a problem. The other factor for the active participation is that the Chewa population is higher than all the other small indigenous languages. Ezra Kaunda and Rabson Umari, who were both Chewa presenters, argued that the Chewa, not the Ndebele population was second to Shona. They attributed this to the fact that there are some people who are not Ndebele but have now been mixed with the Ndebele. These include the Kalanga, Nambya and Xhosa. This is also prevalent among the Shona where the Barwe, Hwesa and Ndau people associate themselves with the Shona (Magwa, 2008; Ndlovu, 2009).

Not all languages had these greetings shows. The following languages did not have greetings programmes:

1. Xhosa 2. Chikunda 3. Hwesa 4. Barwe 5. Doma 6. Yao 7. Ndau

The chief producer and the EP continuity defended the radio station’s position of not having the greetings show in all languages. They reiterated that there was inadequate time to cover all the languages. They also said that commercial factors were taken into consideration when choosing languages for these programmes. All the EPs agreed with their Chief Producer on the importance of each language’s census in the greetings shows. Languages with smaller populations did not have the greetings sessions and sometimes news as there are only a few listeners. These languages did not bring in revenue as they did not have sponsors and advertisers. However, Xhosa had a larger population than the other languages but it still did not have the greetings programme. The Xhosa people do not reside in border areas (Hachipola, 1998; Ndlovu, 2009) where there are transmission problems. The reason for lack of Xhosa greetings could not be established as all personnel at the station could not give an answer. It could be that the Xhosa people are also conversant in Ndebele and they can get a chance to

greet their fellows through other programmes. They could also participate when the Xhosa presenter was on duty.

Sports

Sport is a major area of radio presentation (Huggins, 2007; Haynes, 2009) and National FM has sports programmes and sports updates. The radio station had sports news every morning during the week between 0730 and 0740 hours. The presenters had to research on the trends and the sports updates to present. The sports updates were based on all the popular sporting games in the country and in the world. These included soccer, athletics and other ball games. On Sunday, there were special programmes on Sport updates on all the sporting activities in the whole world. However, like most media channels, National FM had a bias towards soccer. There was also a bias towards men’s sporting activities as there were only a few sessions where women sporting activities were discussed.

The question of language needs to be interrogated at this juncture. The main sports producer at National FM was Ezra Kaunda and he is Chewa. The presenter confirmed that the programme was mainly broadcast in Chewa although he would put in some Shona and Ndebele words here and there.

He said that he spoke Chewa a lot as the station’s mandate was to promote minority languages. The producer/presenter also believed that there were a lot of Chewa speakers in the country. He usually looked at soccer stars and rarely looked at boxing, swimming, tennis, golf, cricket, and athletics in general and many other sporting games. The producer argued that soccer was the most popular game in the world. He, however also looked at the sporting calendar and discussed profiles of the personalities whose games would be in season at the time. For instance, when the World Boxing Council welterweight silver champion Charles Manyuchi beat his Colombian opponent Julio Feria, the programmes for the two consecutive weeks discussed the lives of current and former Zimbabwean boxers. When asked about his bias towards soccer, the producer defended himself by saying that some of the programmes were sponsored and it was the funders who chose the sport that they wanted the station to look at. Since soccer is popular among other games, market forces would influence the radio station to broadcast soccer programmes more than other games.

As said earlier the main sports presenter at National FM speaks Chewa and this means that Chewa was fully represented in terms of sports news. However, other listeners also got the information since the presenter can speak Shona and Ndebele fluently. The co-presentation involved one other presenter besides the main presenter. This means that in every sports programme there was one Chewa presenter

and any other presenter. Presenters in Sotho, Hwesa, Barwe, Doma, Kalanga and Chikunda usually co-presented with Ezra Kaunda. Although the co-presentation allowed the broadcasting of sport in other languages, there was minimal representation as the presenters in other languages did not get the chance to co-present every week. The Shona and Ndebele presentations were also not adequate as sometimes the presenters just summarised the information in their languages. The audiences participated when their fellow language presenters were on air.

Live Commentaries

There were also live soccer commentaries. These usually took place on Sunday afternoon but if there were games on Saturday there would also be these live commentaries. When resources were available, the commentaries were usually broadcast live from the soccer stadia. The duration of the programmes was determined by the length of the match. If the resources did not permit the commentaries were done from the studio using the television. This only happened when the games were broadcast live on television. The commentator and match analyst would be watching and reporting about the game whilst watching on television.

The soccer commentaries were usually broadcast mainly in Chewa and other indigenous languages. Ezra Kaunda, a Chewa producer, usually broadcast soccer matches as a commentator. Observation through listening to the radio programmes and interviews with the presenters indicate that not all languages were represented in the soccer commentary programmes. Chewa was fully represented as the producer speaks the language. The programme was usually co-presented by Mercy Ndlovu, who speaks Sotho and Tswana. Andrew Mupembe, the Hwesa producer/presenter, also co-presented the soccer commentaries and this also accorded Hwesa people a chance to listen.

Other minority languages did not get significant coverage as not all presenters were involved in the soccer commentaries. Tonga, Shangani, Nambya, Ndau, Xhosa and Venda presenters said that they were not involved in these soccer commentaries. The presenters would talk about sport when they were on shifts but the time would be little to cater for all the issues that need to be discussed and shared with speakers of that language.

Conclusion

The chapter has examined the circumstances under which radio production at National FM takes place. Many factors are involved in the production process and these are intertwined in such a way that the malfunction of one of them affects the whole process. The regulatory framework at the station has a direct bearing at the station. As a PSB radio station, National FM is controlled by the government but this control hinders it from performing its mandate to the minority languages. Scarcity of funding also hinders the station from fully representing all the small indigenous languages. Inadequate funding has resulted in the commercialisation of the station and this has resulted in broadcasting in Shona and Ndebele more than the minority languages. Findings from the thesis are that while National FM broadcasts in minority languages, it does not produce content that fully discusses issues that directly cover the interests of small linguistic communities. The study established that while the radio station was broadcasting in the languages of small indigenous linguistic communities, a significant number of programmes were broadcast in Shona and Ndebele. Like many radio stations, National FM also played a lot of music. Some of the presenters complained that local music in their respective languages was scarce and they relied on music from neighbouring countries. The radio station also has sports sessions and, like all the media, National FM had a bias towards soccer and there was also gender bias in sports coverage. The other issue is that not all languages were fully represented in soccer and other sports programmes.