It is not only becoming trendy but also exciting to see Malawians turning to using the Internet as an additional platofrom for broadcasting. Yesterday I listened to a new Internet station called Radio Chambo (www.radiochambo.com). It says it is "Malawi's Internet Radio Station for Political Heavy Hitters."
This puts the number of online radio stations with Malawi input to six after Radio Yako, Radio Maria, Power 101, Capital Radio and Kwacha FM.
The interesting thing though is that this latest one is a third by Malawians in the Diaspora after Radio Yako introduced in 2006 and Kwacha FM in early 2007. This is a great development quite welcometo broadcasting landscape in Malawi and beyond.
The other three (Radio Maria, Capital Radio and Power 101) are all in Malawi and of course broadcasting online with different amounts of time and quality. In fact in real sense it is only Radio Maria that is streaming audio in real time for considerable lengths.
Having been to Radio Chambo's homepage and listening for over an hour, it is easy for a broadcaster like to me to make some preliminary conclusions on the content direction and identity of the station.
I wonder why the home page leaves out Muluzi in its introduction by only refering to Malawi's first president Dr Kamuzu Banda and then the incumbent Dr Mutharika. It says:
LEARN ABOUT MALAWI'S CURRENT LEADER
He took office on May 24, 2004, after
winning a disputed presidential election. Mutharika was the son of a primary
school headmaster. He was educated at the University of Delhi, India, where he
gained a master's degree in economics.
LEARN ABOUT KAMUZU - Kamuzu Banda
was born near Kasungu in Malawi (then British Central Africa) to Mphonongo Banda
and his wife Akupingamnyama Phiri. His date of birth is unknown, and as it took
place at a time when there was no birth registration, it is impossible to state
a precise year.
I found it difficult not to associate it to one of the broadcasters in Malawi especially that the programmes played aired earlier on MBC also on top of being an MBC production. May
be a disclaimer would help us not to arrive at such conclusions which of course is not a problem at all.
Anyhow this is good news and I am sure it will be very exciting. As the 2009 presidential and parliamentary elections come closer, it will be interesting to see how broadcasters stay true to their identity.
Radio Chambo welcome to the arena and congrats at this great initiative! You can be assured you have a critical listener in me as long as my Internet connections allow.
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