Media Reflections from the latter part of the 20th century

AS BACKGROUND for my reflections on the media, I had provided an historical look at the emergence of newspapers up to the 1950s. Newspapers were the dominant form of media then but from the latter part of the 20th Century, radio became the dominant media entity.

The Vincentian stopped for a short period of time before ‘Uncle Metro’ Richards took control and transformed it. The VOICE OF ST. VINCENT appeared for a short period of time from 1962-1968. Until the appearance toward the end of the 20th century of the NEWS, 1989, and SEARCHLIGHT 1995, what existed were papers printed through gestetner machines of political parties and advocacy groups. The TREE was an organ of the Democratic Freedom Movement, The NEW TIMES of the NDP 1984-2003, FREEDOM of YULIMO, and JUSTICE of the UPM.

But radio became dominant from 1954 when the Windward Islands Broadcasting Service (WIBS) was established with its headquarters in Grenada where the Governor of the Windward Islands resided. The story is told that when Hurricane Janet was threatening the region, the expectation was that it was moving toward St. Vincent and likely to hit it. The Governor went on WIBS in Grenada expressing his regrets and hopes for St.

Vincent. In the midst of his address a loud explosion was heard, Grenada, not St. Vincent was hit.

WIBS was paid for from funds provided by British Colonial Development and Welfare Funds. The four colonies of the Windward Islands shared news coverage and special BBC programmes, especially news and sports. By the late 1960s and early 1970s the individual islands sought independent control. But outside of WIBS a small private radio station was started by Weston Lewis who was, among other things, an Amateur Ham Radio Operator. He actually started broadcasting in the 1950s. I am not sure what was the range of his coverage. Radio SVG was started in the 1970s with the studios and facilities of WIBS and was located under the steps of the Labour Department located near to where CK Greaves exists today. In 1986 a Statutory Board was put in place and Radio St. Vincent and the Grenadines became the National Broadcasting Corporation, NBC. Efforts to liberalise radio communication started in the late 1980s, but licenses were not issued until 1989. Of three licenses granted HITZ FM started, followed by NICE Radio in 1996, and then others followed.

Before these, Trinidad radio stations- Radio Trinidad, and Guardian dominated. The Trinidad Carnival road marches became our road marches. We listened to the legendary Trinidad Sports Commentator Raffie Knowles daily.

The ‘Auntie Kay Show’ a children’s radio show that was aired on Sunday afternoons was closely followed by the Vincentian public.

We even followed closely Trinidad politics and sided with Dr. Eric Williams and the PNM. Another popular programme that was widely listened to during the 1970s was the Julian Rogers programme that came from Radio Antilles based in Montserrat, and was terminated after Montserrat suffered a volcanic

eruption. The liberalisation of Radio in SVG led to the emergence of Radio Talk Shows, which continue today. I remember at one time being host to a programme “Letter From the Ground” that was aired on Saturday mornings.

The Talk Shows continue and are carried on social media. So, one could follow through FACE BOOK and other media forms. I should also have mentioned that with the emergence of radio we moved away from the old large GRUNDIG German radios to transistor radios. The wide availability of transistors allowed persons to listen to and participate in the Talk Show programmes from where ever they were. A passing note must be given to Television which was first started by a Ralph Alves who was recognised as a Snow Cone man. Then we had Cable TV with Davy and also SVG Television of Paul McLeish and later IKTV, and VC3.

Social media is complementing and transforming the media. It is a work still in progress. The availability of social media, and a multiplicity of online programmes and platforms have affected the print media, not only in SVG but globally. The NEWS now appears to have done away with its print version, and SEARCHLIGHT has announced that its final production will be on September 25. There is so much more that can be said about social media and its impact on society. But this is for another time, perhaps on social media.

_ Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian