Brick walls or brick columns? : management responses to the challenge of sustainability in community radio with special reference to Bush Radio and Radio Zibonele

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:Community radio stations in South Africa are faced with a huge challenge to becomesustainable in the process of serving their communities. The issue of sustainability itselfis complex and shaped by a range of conditionalities. These include communityparticipation, funding, regulatory and licencing factors, staff and management expertise,and the strategic planning and management capacity of a station. Often the communitiesthemselves are materially poor and unable to contribute in monetary terms to the radiostation. However, these same communities are also a source of wealth when it comes toexperience, ideas, human power and time. A major challenge is for station managementto develop organisational strategies that facilitate full utilisation of this communityresource in the process of sustaining their stations.The focus of this study is on two stations in the Western Cape - Bush Radio and RadioZibonele - and how their management is responding to the challenge of sustainability.Bush Radio has evolved a diversification strategy based on providing formal trainingand development as an income-generator, and Radio Zibonele has responded through astrategy of selling airtime to advertisers. This work describes these sustainabilitystrategies and explores whether they constitute 'building a brick column or a brick wall'.The conclusion suggests that while both radio stations demonstrate varying degrees ofcommunity participation, clear internal systems of monitoring and control of resources,they differ in some fundamental respects of strategy. Bush Radio, on the one hand,shows a clear commitment to consciously diversifying income sources in a way thatdoes not leave the station highly dependent on any single source. This, the writersubmits, constitutes an attempt at building a brick wall. Radio Zibonele, on the otherhand, shows a clear commitment to consolidation and reliance on advertising revenueas a single source of income for the station. To the extent that this station relies on asingle source of income and does not demonstrate any strategic objective of diversifyingsources, the writer submits, it is building a brick column.The basic assumption of this study is that while the challenge of sustainability constitutesan objective reality facing community radio stations in South Africa today, the subjectiveresponses developed by station management to deal with this challenge can and oftendo make a difference.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University