The End of Muzik FM

It has been reported that today’s Mingguan Malaysia [23.11.2011] in its supplement “Pancaindera” carried the news entitled “Radio Muzik Akhirnya berkubur” [Radio Music to close down]. On another page the same supplement also featured three former announcers defending the existence of the network under the titled “Pertahan Muzik FM” [Defending Music FM].

I am not surprised at the reactions of the three former announcers and many former RTM’s radio staff who are quite sentimental about their Alma matter. I don’t think they are familiar with the historical fact of the existence of the nearly four decades old network operating beside the other radio networks of RTM. It may be an old network with popular support but RTM cannot afford to have parallel networks working on the same format competing for almost the same audience.

RTM has been operating various networks nationwide as well as on regional and local basis. Lately Muzik FM has been the leader in audience rating among the RTM networks surpassing the ever popular and the mainstay of the national broadcaster radio network “Kelasik Nasional”. The irony of it is that the two networks have been competing for the same audience with almost the same format of programming. The redundancy is quite obvious. If I am the owner of the station, I definitely will have to sacrifice the lesser of the “influential” network in order to maintain the position of my mainstay.

Having said that I feel RTM must have something else in mind to replace the network to be closed down. As a follower of radio broadcasting I find RTM has failed in its effort to disseminate news and information to the populace as part of its objective. I have a feeling the next step would be to have a special network carrying news and information only, the like of BBC, ABC, and VOA etc.

I would like to dwell on the metamorphosis of radio broadcasting over RTM. Initially there were four networks working side by side conforming to the racial divide of the country, Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil. Being the national language the Malay broadcast was expanded in its daily duration till it went round the clock. Then there was the need to have the regional and local broadcasts. As broadcasting technology improves there was a need to introduce “Stereo”. This was the time when Radio Music came into existence purely for music lovers. Initially its broadcast was concentrating on good and fine music. It was banded on the hourly basis carrying the western classic, evergreen, local music and various others. As the years went by this original format was forgotten. When the commercial radios came the format was totally abandon and the present format was introduced.

Interestingly at the same time the commercial radios went on the air the national broadcaster felt the pinch of its listeners being taken away by its “rival”. There was a harried need of changing its format to meet the “challenge” but it didn’t work as the “rivals” were more youthful and raunchy in their presentation.

It was at this time that there was a change of guard at the ministerial level in the ministry of information. As usual new personality would introduce new idea and concept. It was Tan Sri Zainuddin Mydin [better known as ZAM] who revamped the Malay broadcast, the national network known as Rangkaian Nasional at one time. Originally a classical Malay network was introduced known as RIMA but there was lack of transmitter to carry its broadcast nationwide. For the patriotic it was a welcome event. In order to go nationwide the network was incorporated into the Rangkaian Nasional to be known as “Klasik National”. Changes were made to its format and presentation. Many of the popular programmes such as Drama, Rural and Development and others were dropped, leaving the network with presentation of songs and music, especially the yesteryears. This did not merit popularity among the young. Hence, the dropped in its popularity ratings.

Looking at the role of the both Kelasik Nasioanl and Muzik FM the redundancy was clear. So it’s not a surprise should the power that be in Angkasapuri decided to forego the existence of Muzik FM.

It is time that a new network be introduced to carry the news and information similar to that of BBC. I am not surprised if this new network will incorporate the Bernama Radio 24 which has the element of such radio. After all Radio 24 need the transmitters to go nationwide.

We can say goodbye to Muzik FM.

In Remembrance

When the European League Football Final was played at Wembley last week in which Manchester United was soundly beaten by the formidable Spanish Club Barcelona 1-3, it brought back memory of the same events 26 years back at Heysel Stadium, Brussels. That event was more remembered for the tragedy that happened before the start of the match than the match itself or the result. This is the excerpt from the Liverpool FC website on the anniversary of the tragic event:

On the 26th anniversary of the Heysel Stadium tragedy, Liverpool Football Club remembers the 39 football supporters who lost their lives in the disaster.

Liverpool FC placed a wreath at the Heysel Memorial Plaque this afternoon as a mark of respect.

The Club unveiled the permanent tribute to the 39 last year at a moving ceremony attended by officials and former players of both Liverpool and Juventus.

I remember the event vividly as it happened in the wee hours in Malaysia where we were carrying the Final live over RTM 1. I was with the RTM crew in Studio 2 of Angkasapuri overseeing the live telecast as the Head of the newly created Sports Division. The Producer was Mathew George and our anchorman was Rahim Razali. We were readying ourselves to enjoy the match when the English commentators on the other end sounded distress and unhappy at the scene at a portion of the stadium. Then they stopped commenting but the visual was uninterrupted.

The crew at the control panel of Studio 2 was focussing on me to come up with a decision to interrupt the visual with a “filler” of our own in case of such “emergency”. George made a remark “Boss I am waiting for your decision”. I told George let the visual be on our telecast and to instruct Rahim to make careful remark on the sensitive scene of the clash between the two rival factions. Rahim did make a comment and ask the viewers to judge the events unfolding in front of us.

Meanwhile the crew were restless. It was normal for the show to be interrupted with emergency programme until situation became normal. I calmed them down by ensuring that thing will be back to normal and the match will be played. Whatever questions rose from that decision will be my responsibility. True enough the match was on much later. We have to work extra time that night.

We discovered later RTM was the only station in the world that carried the tragedy live. I knew I would have to answer to the authority upstairs on the “sensitive” scenes akin to “13 May Tragedy” which was still fresh in our memory then. It was none other than the Minister of Information himself, the late Tan Sri Mohamad Rahmat who commanded me to his office to hear my explanation.

I told him I was moved by the recent article in the paper rebuking the Malays and Malaysian being uncivilised and living on trees. The decision to show the tragedy was to prove to the world that even the European were still uncivilised and going after each other throats while watching a simple game of football. At least our football fans were good enough to enjoy local football with friendly banters.

The Minister was happy with my reasoning and said he was watching the whole event too and was of the same opinion. I felt relief.

Bintang HMI

I was not much into music. Last night for no reason I decided to watch what the entertainment fare on TV1 was after the 8.00 p.m. main news. I was pleasantly surprised to see the current primadona of the national singing scene Dato’ Siti Nurhaliza Taruddin in the special “Bersama Siti Nurhaliza”. RTM have decided to replace the long running Saturday night entertainment fare of “Hiburan Minggu Ini” (HMI) with the “Bersama...” series.

I am no great follower of CT as she is popularly recognised by her numerous fans neither do I know her personally but she is one of those personality who affected decisions I made in my career at RTM. I was elated by her announcement that it was at that Auditorium where she was presently performing that her career as a singer was launched when she was declared the winner of the singing contest “Bintang HMI 1995”.

She was the second winner of the short span series. The first winner in 1994 was Nora, another well known singer following her success in the contest. There was another contest after I retired from service in 1996 won by the popular Sarawak girl.

How I got involved with this series went back to the time when I was sent to Kuching to be RTM’s Director for the Sarawak Region. It was a laid back life there and I was working at a leisurely pace as my main attention was on the radio broadcasts of numerous local ethnic dialects. We were just a feeder service for television in Kuala Lumpur. As a person used hectic work regime at headquarters in KL, ideas start mushrooming in my mind on improving the broadcasts.

We had close rapport with the state government under Pihin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud. He was supportive of our children programme which gave birth to the popular contest “Bintang Kecil”. Pihin Sri is well known for being a great fan of the legendary P.Ramlee. When I made a curtsey call on reporting duty in Kuching he was toying with the idea of introducing a talent singing contest over TV entitled “Bintang P.Ramlee” which was introduced over the local radio. After listening to my explanation on the intricacies of running the contest nation-wide on TV he readily agreed the state government would bear part of the cost. So began the “Bintanng P.Ramlee” venture every two years.

The then Minister of Information Tan Sri Mohamad Rahmat was present at the first contest in 1993 held at the newly Stadium Perpaduan Kuching carried live by TV1. The busiest person running the show in Kuching was the present Director General Dato Norhyati Ismail who was then heading the TV component of RTM in Sarawak.

Tan Sri Mohamad was lamenting to me the dearth of talent spotting programme on the musical scene over RTM. I could not respond to him positively as that was KL’s responsibility. I was happy he was heaps of praised for the “Bintang P.Ramlee” and our cooperation with the state government.

When I came back to KL and made the Director of Television again I heard the same lamenting from the Minister. The strange thing was that I was never invited by my boss to attend the “Post Cabinet” meeting every Wednesday afternoon and could not give direct respond to the Minister. I knew he wanted us to give TV3 a run for their money in this department as it was running a successful singing contest programme based on popular artists’ performance on the chart.

On the quite I suggested to the then Head of Entertainment TV Barbara Edmond to run a small contest within the ever popular Saturday night HMI. Initially she was hesitant as it involved extra responsibility to get the mechanism working. We met the entertainment producers who took turn producing HMI. They were willing to take up the challenge by adding additional change to the already winning formula which was getting too predictable. It did not affect the budget too greatly. So we launch the project quitely without informing the power upstairs.

The boys and girls in the Hiburan TV started fanning the whole country with the cooperation of their Hiburan counterpart all over the nation searching for talents. They started the Bintang HMI on a modest basis having six contestants in each episode on preliminary basis. Then it went to the Quarter-Finals and the press were on it speculating the winners. The bosses upstairs started paying attention following the excellent press report.

                                                        (compliment Jack Nadarajah)

The Bintang HMI got more intense when we decided to run the Semi-Finals as a whole programme on the HMI slot. We decided to run the Final live after getting support all round especially the Orchestra RTM who were willing to accompany the singers. We also got the best musical experts of the country to be the judges.

By this time I decided to be just in the background and let other people do the talking. What was important to me it was mission accomplished – the Minister was pleased with the professionalism of the staff of the Hiburan Department without being “directed”.

The first year experienced gave us a good guideline on running the next show and CT was the winner getting the limelight to be a Superstar and an excellent “ambassador” of Malaysian singing. She is a great defender of Malay dresses. I have not seen her out of it ever since I set eyes on her.  She deserves to be a winner.