To say that the station has come back from the dead is no exaggeration. In fact, when Dr Ivan May retired from his very high profile job as group marketing director for Nedcor and volunteered to take over as pro-bono CEO of the then ailing Radio Today, most of his friends and colleagues thought he had completely lost his mind. That he had spent too much time at home on weekends sniffing quite the wrong sort of plants from his showpiece garden.
Particularly when after only a few weeks he was faced with a directive from SARS saying that the station would be shut down in 24 hours after failing for the past few years to pay VAT or pass on to SARS all the PAYE deductions from employees. Most people would have thrown in the towel right then. After all, who on earth would want to get involved with the sordid inefficiencies of previous management? It's the sort of stuff that ruins reputations in a heartbeat.
But, May was not about to give up. He contacted a friend on the board of the newly formed Media Development & Diversity Agency (MDDA) who in turn spoke to MDDA partners, GCIS, who in turn met with their counterparts at SARS who agreed to give Radio Today one final chance. In fact, this was one of the first efforts by the MDDA in terms of fulfilling its mandate to assist community media.
The rest is history. With no financial resources to invest in a formal marketing campaign, May got behind his computer and telephone and started a word of mouth campaign among his wide network of friends and colleagues. He roped in Alec Hogg and Moneyweb and with persistence and a never-say-die optimism, literally dragged Radio Today out of its deathbed and injected a new lease on life.
Its handful of listeners, so small in those early days that they hardly raised a mention in most listenership surveys, has grown to just short of half a million, with listenership of the Moneyweb programme rising to the magic million mark. Quite remarkable numbers for a community radio station – higher in fact than some of the country's commercial stations.
Radio Today has not been without its problems – one of those being some fairly torrid encounters with long-time listener groups incensed over programming changes and complaining to the authorities about the station treading outside of its licence mandate.
But once again, personal intervention, a lot of stakeholder meetings and infinite patience by Ivan May resolved them all. A quite remarkable juggling act between minority listener demands and programming changes so essential to sustainability.
It is an outstanding case history of not only how marketing is absolutely vital for community radio stations but how an intensive marketing campaign need not cost much at all.
