End of the road for Redifusion
Here is the news from ST. For more please refer to
http://www.straitstimes.com/
"After more than six decades on the
air, the iconic radio service Rediffusion will go silent from April 30.
The death knell came in the form of
a simple two-paragraph statement delivered by hand to The Straits Times in an
envelope on Sunday.
In it, Rediffusion Singapore's
management said: 'We would like to express our deepest gratitude to all our
listeners for their support throughout 63 years.'
Opened in 1949, Singapore's only
subscription-based radio broadcaster currently has 15 channels. But it is most
popular among older listeners here for its Cantonese, Teochew and Hokkien talk
shows and music."
A reader Mr Yeo Hock Yew also wrote this to ST Forum about his memories ......
So long
Rediffusion, thanks for the memories
"REDIFFUSION is an old family friend
('Rediffusion to close at month's end'; Monday). My family still associates it
with our golden years in the old Queenstown. Throughout the day, its
programming brought music that enriched our family life in a less sophisticated
time. It came with no battery change or electricity consumption - and all for a
princely price of $5 per month.
Deejays like Peggy Ross, Noreen
Sales, Mike Ellery, Larry Lai and Eric Lim were familiar voices and literally
household names, though we never got to meet them.
From that brown box came songs of
flawless sound quality that remain in our hearts to this day. That was when we
heard Jim Reeves sing posthumously, This World Is Not My Home, and who left us
with the poignant message, I Won't Forget You, in his velvet voice.
In that pre-YouTube period, we fell
in love with the voices of Judith Durham and The Seekers, long before we knew
what they looked like.
There was entertainment even before
the songs were played in the fanciful names of song requesters like Ricardo
Manfred Tan.
Our highlights each day were the
request programmes: Here's To The Ladies (for female requesters only) and Where
The Boys Are (male requesters only), introduced by their epony-mous theme songs
rendered by Frankie Avalon and Connie Francis respective-ly.
The programme, Top Tunes Of The
Week, would feature the most requested songs of the week. At the end of the
day, soothing songs in Sing Something Simple lulled us to sleep.
This has been a passage of life in
Singapore. From the landscape of the 1960s, we have lost the Indian rojak
stalls in Waterloo Street; the bookshop row in Bras Basah Road; some iconic
cinemas in town; the proud historical town schools; and the red-brick National
Library in Stamford Road. In Queenstown, we have lost Forfar Building, the
bowling alley and the cinemas; the canal is gone from sight; and the itinerant
hawkers and barbers no more do their rounds.
And now a sound of the 1960s will
soon be silenced. Sure, a new technological world has arrived, but we have lost
the world we knew and grew up in.
Rediffusion, you were practically
the first sound at the crack of dawn - even before the nasi lemak boy's cry -
and the last one at the stroke of midnight. Goodbye old friend. And thank you
for the music."
My memories: I started listening to Redifusion in the 50s when I was staying at Race Course Road.Early morning Chinese Evergreens was my favourite. Then I was attracted to the evening stories of the Monkey God in Teochew, Water Margin etc. I stayed in Balestier , Bukit Merah, Ang Mo Kio and few other places on and off. Mother and wife liked stories on this box so we had Redifusion too.. In subsequent years we turned to RTS Radio Channels as it was more convenient and easily accessible.
The death of this iconic media company has to come as new media technologies bring in new demands making the delivery and content obsolete. There were attempts to introduce digital radio using the DAB technology but it was too few channels too late. When MediaCorp decided to switch off DAB I knew its death is near. Thanks for the memories.
PS: I have some of the stories in Cantonese aired in the old days. Not good quality but ok. Email me if you need a copy.
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