Lockdown: PUKfm plays on

PUKfm has continued to reach thousands of listeners during the lockdown thanks to the efforts of a team of presenters who recorded and produced content remotely. An audience of up to 10 000 students per month have streamed content in this time, PUKfm station manager Charonike Nel said.

When the nationwide lockdown was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa on 23 March 2020 access to the North-West (NWU) campuses – and university campuses countrywide – became restricted and campus radio stations like PUKfm could only offer news and music to its audience. 

But after a week presenters started contributing content from wherever they were. According to Nel “all content has been recorded remotely via WhatsApp, then produced and sent to the studio via Team Viewer [software that allows remote desktop access].”

According to Nel it wasn’t an easy start. “With load-shedding and initial restricted campus access, it was very difficult in the beginning as the studio was not entirely set up for full remote operation.” She explains most of the 45 presenters were able to pre-record their shows remotely, but some could not  “We had a lot of presenters who did not have Wifi connectivity or their phones’ speakers broke.”

According to Nel this also had an influence on programming as PUKfm had a lot of speciality shows that could not be produced because the presenters who were responsible for them could not pre-record shows away from campus. “We do try to get most of the shows on air, but it has been difficult,” says Nel.

News manager of PUKfm Sulé Steenkamp says the University of Pretoria (UP-TUKS) paved the way with this “new normal” of broadcasting. Steenkamp says that she was aware of UP-TUKS continuing its operations remotely via WhatsApp, and that this inspired PUKfm to move in the same direction.

According to Nel, the idea was presented during a brainstorming session held by the management committee in April on how to solve the problem of maintaining broadcasting without presenters being able to access the studio on campus.

“It has been extremely difficult keeping up morale, because the new group [of presenters] which was appointed in March could never fully integrate with the original team,” says Nel.

One of the news presenters who have had difficulties working remotely is Lindubuhle Mgobozi, a third-year economics and risk management student. “The online recording is very hard. You need to put yourself in a zone so the listeners enjoy it even though you are just sitting at home and doing nothing,” said Mgobozi. 

Another senior presenter at PUKfm is Barrie Ferreira, a second-year BA Communication student. Ferreira says “at the beginning of lockdown, it was quite cool to record from home because I could actually hear myself speak on air for the first time.” 

Ferreira and Mgobozi both miss the studio vibe. Despite these difficulties, PUKfm has experienced a massive spike in online streaming during lockdown. Nel says it has had a 50 percent increase on their stream during the first two to three months of lockdown and has reached an audience of up 10 000 per month.  “It was incredible, I did not expect that.”

She also explains that they had a lot of interaction on Instagram during the lockdown and tsome individual presenters also received feedback from listeners on social media. 

A first-year zoology and microbiology student Megan Grobler (21) says, “Since I don’t have to drive home after class anymore I had to find another way to tune in to my favourite radio station to enjoy their afternoon drive. I personally make use of the website “iono” to stream online when I’m not in my car because I don’t have a radio.” Grobler says listening to PUKfm has been the best medicine after a busy day of online classes.

Ruan van der Watt (23), a third-year BCom human resource management student and PUKfm listener, says he spends a lot of time listening to in his car. “It has better music than most other stations and it caters for students which makes it fun to listen to,” says Van der Watt.  – Technology desk