Commercial Radio Pakifas

Page last edited 1,298 days ago
From Nara Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Commercial Radio Pakifas (CRP) was a Pakifan radio station that operated between July 22, 1966 and July 19, 1977.

History[edit | edit source]

The Pakifan government of the time conceded a license to a crony of the then-defunct Radio Corporation of Flarland (1928-1943; broadcasts resumed 1971) to Commercial Radio Pakifas in June 1965. The radio station started broadcasts on July 22, 1966.

At the time, it was the third radio station to broadcast on Pakifan transmitters, and the second Pakifan-run station, after Voice of Pakifas. During its first few weeks on air, it attained an unexpectedly high listener base with its "attractive" programming. One of its more popular programs was 220 Thousand, an entertainment show.

CRP played tracks that Voice of Pakifas never played due to its policy. It became notorious for introducing many Pakifans to musicians and bands like Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones and especially The Beatles. The bulk of CRP's programs were in English, but there were some programs in Pakifan, as well as Pakifan Creole.

Shutdown[edit | edit source]

A controversial 1976 law (1976 Language Mixing Act) caused a huge storm in the functioning of CRP. The program Kena He Managarai?, despite being in the Pakifan language, reportedly "abused the usage of Creole" and led to "acts of intermingling the languages". The Pakifan Creole language isn't oficially recognized by the government and was already banned by VOP since its foundation.

In October of that year, Kena He Managarai got cancelled and protests were being made outside CRP's headquarters. These were proven to be useless and the government started tightening up its measures against it. CRP was then forced to stop broadcasting programming in Pakifan other than the news. This led to a decrease in listeners from an average 50,000 to about 10,000.

On July 7, 1977, in a failed attempt to keep the station afloat, CRP initiated its ambitious Lucky 7 campaign, changing the schedule from scratch. The government reacted quickly to the decision and set the station to "timebomb" mode, with the station having to conclude its legal operations by the end of the month. A backup plan was enacted on July 8-9, with plans to make it offshore, but was foiled by the government.

On the morning of July 14, in an attempt to prevent further government interference with CRP, a telegram memo was sent to CRP announcing that the closedown was scheduled for midnight. Within a matter of hours CRP's staff were in a hurry setting up the final broadcast of the station.

The last words spoken on CRP at 23:45 on July 19, 1977 were by the general manager Peter Luorangko.

"In about a quarter of an hours' time, Commercial Radio Pakifas will leave the air permanently. We weren't expecting to take this decision.

On the 15th of July, the Pakifan government has sent us threats to stop operating CRP following enactments of laws that were considered to be distasteful to the Pakifan listener. The cancellation of programming in any sort of native Pakifan language, partly due to the diversion of the language spoken to Pakifan Vernacular Creole, a language forbidden by Voice of Pakifas, has created a fatal blow on our profits and listener base.

Currently the Pakifan government is urging people like us to speak proper English and refuse to mix any language.

Aside from what we said earlier, when CRP signed on in 1966 we wanted the station to run for "years and years". I for myself, who uttered that term in the inaugural speech in 1966, was expecting for CRP to continue broadcasting for 20, 30, 50, even 100 years.

We were the first station in the Pakifas to catch up with the times. We were the first station to play songs that the official station would believe to be "decadent music" and produced cutting-edge programs in all of the native languages. We never knew that our prodigious run of just eleven years would come to a screeching halt.

As we finish our final day of operations, I would like to thank everyone who played in the building of CRP, a staff of more than forty talented people who knew how to make radio, produce programs, hire talents and invite singers.

To our two AM radio transmitters, as well as our FM simulcast and sister service CRP FM, we wish good luck to whoever occupies what CRP used to be.

Our thanks to our audience of about 100.000, both within and outside the Pakifas, and to our dedicated catchers in Lenapore and Northulia, so that the diaspora there was able to spread our voices further afield.

To Commercial Radio Pakifas, we would like to thank an effort that ran from 1968 to 1973 that allowed the two sides to exchange hosts and talents so that the Pakifans would contribute to the mainlanders and them to us.

To everyone who wrote to CRP, wishing we were able to continue the project one day, thank you for the letters of support, gratitude and also dismay, because when something ends, there are good things and bad things and we need to sort them out.

And to everyone who listened, the entire staff, management and all the manpower behind Commercial Radio Pakifas, this is Peter Luorangko saying, for the final time, what our regular announcers did every night at closing time: Good night, good luck, goodbye and ia rakene maehanei.

Good night, everyone."

Halfway through the speech, a somber version of Auld Lang Syne started playing up until the end of the speech, this was followed by the Pakifan parting song Ia Rakene (that was also played up until 1985 in the nightly closing of Voice of Pakifas radio and television preceding the anthem), and lastly the Flarlandian national anthem, preceded by the flag raising part.

Programming[edit | edit source]

Popular programming on CRP included:

  • Kena He Managarai? was a popular entertainment program in Pakifan Creole. At the time, the dialect was banned from Voice of Pakifas. This program, as above mentioned, led to the shutdown of CRP.