Radio Ga-Ga

Bermuda’s radio stations need to pull their finger out.

It’s bad enough - if understandable given the Island’s size - that there are only 3 FM stations to choose from, an odd bunch that give you a choice between Phil Collins and Jennifer Rush (FM 89 - "Drip FM"), rap and reggae (Power 95 - "Black FM") and anything from Dido to Radiohead (Mix 106). As a white heterosexual that leaves me one station worth listening to. There are five on the AM band too, including the BBC World service, but like AM stations everywhere, the sound quality is so poor I’ve found it impossible to bring myself to listen to them for any length of time.

The production values on all three FM stations are shockingly low. The biggest annoyance is that the levels are all over the place. You set the volume so the DJ sounds just right, then an ad or a news report will come on and often it’s so much quieter you literally can’t hear what’s being said. This happens all the time and it drives me nuts. Surely it should be simple for a professional broadcasting organisation to sort out?

Mind you, I wouldn’t mind not hearing some of the local ads, which can be wincingly bad. If I hear the perfectly enunciated English tones of Jilly Forge from Island Trading one more time (“I used to wonder just why it is that we sell more rain suits than anywhere else in Bermuda…”) I think I may go mad.

There are other inexplicable technical glitches. A month or two back, Mix 106 was cutting out for about a second every two minutes when retransmitting an American station (a common occurrence to reduce the cost involved in having a local DJ all the time). The news jingle on FM 89 sounds like it’s been recorded on a tape that’s been stretched - apparently it’s been like that for years.

With the exception of one guy on Mix 106 (whose name escapes me right now), the DJs are a pretty poor bunch too. Most ‘um’ and ‘er’ their way through their shows and seem to have difficulty with their timing. Sometimes you hear short extracts of music to fill in the gap between the end of one song and the start of the news; sometimes the news tape is started 10 seconds in, after a song or ad overruns.

Local news is broadcast with admirable length and regularity, but you can pretty much forget about international coverage. Every 15 minute local news segment on Mix 106 in the morning is followed by literally two minutes of “CNN Headline News”. This means one-sentence coverage of the top three US news stories of the day - if you’re lucky you might get 15 seconds about the latest terrorist attack in Iraq or Israel.

The great hope for radio in Bermuda has to lie with the US satellite radio stations XM and Sirius, which are gaining in popularity here. One day the local radio stations may find that no-one’s listening to them any more.

Comments

[Eric on 23.01.04 at 00:34]

Between the TV and the radio here I have frequently remarked to my fiancee that it honestly feels like the media here is entirely compromised of middle school children (13 year olds).
In total seriousness, the ads, news, and general quality is *exactly* at the level my middle school's radio and TV station were at. I found it awful at the time, but at least you could always shrug your shoulders and say "they are just kids, they have done pretty well"... not sure what the excuse here except I would imagine money.

I am usually loathe to say anything negative since I am not Bermudian and I am therefore just a foreigner and perhaps don't have much ground to stand on - but in this case, I have to say that the media here is absolutely atrocious.

There was a police warning on TV this evening during the news that pointed out that this Christmas, we should keep an eye out in the Cobbs Hill area for thieves.
Then again, this is the same news that will cut to dead air instead of showing a proper clip, or show the wrong clip twice in a row with varying sound levels.
The same news that will frequently finish a broadcast with visual scenes of various Bermuda landmarks - or perhaps just some water, or the road - nobody talking. It is a direct reference to some of the TV news shows in the States that need something to run their credits over... except that the States doesn't then feed that news audio signal over the radio so that the last bit is just dead air for those sitting in their cars during that time.
The weather girl seems to be in some sort of race to fit her entire segment into one single deep breath of air and as little time as possible - her inflection will change, which is a start, but there are no pauses at all between sentences.

But what do I know, I'm just an ex-pat and have no right to complain about anything.
I guess you could say I'm "flaxable" :)

[St. George's vumman on 23.01.04 at 05:18]

Eric's "flaxable" comment was hilarious! I'm an onion -(a flaxable one!) and I agree entirely with both of you. Don't get me started about de tawk shows. God help us.
I now live in an area where there is no cable television available. Can you imagine two and a half t.v. stations (can't get a picture on the third) 24/7? Did you, like most of us resident here, think the whole island was cabled? Wrong. As you can imagine, I quite often feel like I'm stepping back in time. (I'm an antique so there is a lot of time to step back into!) I can immediately place myself in a third world country as I listen to and/or watch the nightly Carribbean television so generously offered locally for us mortals. For a while I wondered where the expression "the news package", delivered nightly on one of the local t.v. stations came from. I now know, it's from down south - their package is also presented every evening.
I thoroughly enjoy this blog and I thank you for it. I've recommended it to some of my Bermudian mates who live abroad and we all look in at the comment of A Limey in Bermuda. We grew up with your in-laws so the personal content is very often familiar!
Keep up the good work. Please continue to offer the Limey perspective; we've benefitted from it for some near 400 years now - keep it coming - we may not act on your comment (hence our very poor media cover which will continue to be extended here for many years to come), but ... "ve listen to you, you know by"!

[big bad wolf on 23.01.04 at 08:47]

Heah whats with all this finger talk about pulling things?

[Pondblogger on 23.01.04 at 11:55]

Thought of net radio? Winamp's free new version has an impressive variety of pre-set stations of all kinds to choose from, and other software does more or less the same thing. As long as you have broadband, you need never put up with the locally-grown stuff again.

[Phil on 23.01.04 at 13:32]

Internet radio's great for tuning in to UK radio stations when I'm at home, but unfortunately doesn't help much when I'm listening in the car.

I'd probably have satellite radio now were it not for the fact that apparently the signal strength is heavily dependent on the orientation of your aerial.

[Pondblogger on 23.01.04 at 14:05]

Can you get either Sirius or XM here? Their websites both say no.

[Christian on 23.01.04 at 14:06]

I use XM in Bermuda with great success. It works no problem in my house, well in my car (with the occassional 1 second interruption) and fantastic on a boat! The normal antennae's work fine as long as you can face it southwest without obstruction.

I consider it about the best $100 a year that I spend.

[Phil on 23.01.04 at 14:15]

Pondblogger - I think this is one of those occasions where you need a credit card with a US billing address (hopefully an EasyLink card with a ZipX address attached will work too, though iTunes doesn't seem to like that). Christian?

[Christian on 23.01.04 at 14:43]

I used my ZipX address which is totally unrelated to my Bermuda based credit card. I thought it would set off bells but it went through without a problem!

[Lizardfish on 26.01.04 at 13:22]

Please can I reitterate the above and say how terrible all our radio station are! For the high tech hype in bermuda, you'd think we could do so much better.

I talked to Bryan Darby about the mixed volume levels onj Mix 106, he said that the companies supply the tapes for the adverts, and there is a dial thing that you have to control and it is old, and so when you play an add, the volume goes all weird, and you have to adjust it with this crappy dial, that doesn't work well and he hates it too, but they can't really do anything about it. A poor excuse, but if you saw the state of the VSB studios you'd understand. They exist in a complete sh*thole! I guess they can't afford to buy good equipment.

Anyway, most of the DJs suck and I wantt o hurl a rock through the window on Reid Street every time that Carol woman is on. The trouble is, there is nothing better listen too, apart from silence in your car, when the batteries in your CD player have run out.

HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ, HANG DJ

HANG THE DJ!

HANG THE DJ!

(Smiths song)

I wish we could set up a pirate radio station

[Ross Eldridge on 27.01.04 at 10:48]

Hello Folks!

I recently sold all but about 50 of my CDs, and turned to radio instead ... Well, Internet radio. I highly recommend looking up Live365 and/or Spinner. The BBC has great online programming from their site. In a day I can listen to British Invasion (Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!) or Tony Hancock on Radio 7 (listened to those when I was a kid, before we had TV here) or Original Philippines Music from the other side of the world. I'm also starting to like the Bollywood music. At first I thought it sounded like cats screwing, but I'm learning to like it. Anyway, that's my two cents ...

[Lizardfish on 27.01.04 at 22:26]

Oh what joy it must be to have DSL! :-(

[Bermudian in Limey Land on 05.02.04 at 10:33]

Black FM!! Who the hell are you?? Just because the majority of your melanin challanged brethren don't have the rhythm to dance to it.. does NOT mean that some white people don't enjoy the talent and vision of black musicians (and **NEWSFLASH** rap and reggae are not the only forms of music produced by black people) Black musicians excel at Soul/Neo~Soul, R&B, Jazz, Alternative and any other musical expressions we lay our hands on (we just have the sense to avoid country and the screaming rock stuff you all call music... for the most part) and I feel that allllll of these are represented on Power 95...

If it bothers you that much go home and listen to the rubbish Pete Waterman, Simon Cowell and Neil Fox are regurgetating into the UK "music scene" on a regular basis...

[Phil on 05.02.04 at 13:43]

Of course rap and reggae aren't the only forms of music produced by black people or played on Power 95. FM 89 doesn't just play Phil Collins and Jennifer Rush either. I was simply using them as examples to illustrate the character of each station for those unfamiliar with them.

Clearly there are white people who would love the music on Power 95, just as I'm sure there are black people who like country and "that screaming rock stuff". There's nothing wrong with rap, reggae, soul or R&B, I just happen to not be a big fan of them (jazz I love).

That doesn't alter the fact that most of the music played by Power 95 seems to be, in my admittedly limited experience, traditionally "black" music, produced by black artists. Referring to the station as Black FM isn't derogatory, it's just a statement of fact.

[C.U.R.E. on 24.12.04 at 12:26]

WHO EVER WROTE THIS IS A RACIST IT'S NOT JUST RAP RAGGAE AND SOUL. WHY WOULD ANYONE WRITE THIS. MIX 106 PLAYS RAP(SOMETIMES) SO THEY ARE NOT A WHITE STATION THEY CATORE TO ALOT OF PEOPLE BLACK OR WHITEC SO STOP BEING RACIST YOU RACIST. LIMEY IN BERMUDA I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU WILL HAVE THIS RACIST ON I WILL NOT COME ON THIS WEBSITE. OKAY

[Bermykid on 26.12.04 at 20:37]

I kinda gave up on local radio a time back. I like my sports both american and European so to that end I listen to SportingNews.com and BBC five whioch while not totally sports based does keep me up live with my weekend and through the week soccer, I even listened to the PPV boxing match a few weeks back between Klitchko and Danny Williams. Locally there is not to much that excites me and alot of that doesn'ty really have to much to do with the music they play it's just that most of the personalities are so painful to listen to. For instance Popwer 95 has a DJ called Jr. Radigun who can't talk to save his soul, 1340 boasts the woefully inept Steve Franks, FM89 boasts no one local at all as it is beamed in The VSB chain of stations aren't bad, they have the most eloquent personalities but there news kills them. Thankfully my job takes me far from a radio betyween 12 and close to 4, I may catch the last two or three minutes of Everest's show once or twice a week, but I do catch Lopes' early segment in the morning on the way to work and frankly that is a hoot, my wife and I get a chuckle every morning.