Springbok Radio

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Springbok Radio was a South African radio station that operated from 1950 to 1985.

Contents

[edit] History

On 1 May 1950, the first South African Commercial Radio Service, Springbok Radio took to the airwaves. The station would be fully bilingual broadcasting in both English and Afrikaans. After almost 5 years of intense investigations by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and after consultations with both Lord Reith of the BBC and the South African Government it was decided to start a commercial radio service in South Africa.

The first voice heard on the air that morning was Eric Egan. Eric would be well remembered for his daily "Corney Crack" and those familiar words " I Looooveee Yoouuu". Many of the programmes during the 1950's were imported from Australia, but as time moved on and more funding became available Springbok Radio produced almost all of its programmes within South Africa through a network of independent production houses.

In 1976 television was launched in South Africa to be followed by television commercials in 1978. This was one of the major factors of the demise of Springbok Radio which closed on 31 December 1985.

[edit] List of Programmes

Programmes broadcast on Springbok Radio included:

  • Squad Cars (1969-1985)
  • Consider Your Verdict (1954-1985)
  • The Epic Casebook aka Inspector Carr Investigates (1957-1985)
  • High Adventure (1973-1985)
  • The Creaking Door (1963-1970)
  • Lux Radio Theatre aka Radio Theatre (1950-1985)
  • The Men from the Ministry (1969-1985)
  • No Place To Hide (1958-1970)
  • Liefdeslied (1953-1959)
  • Test the Team (1954-1985), etc.
  • The Mind Of Tracey Dark
  • The 4.30 show with David Gresham

[edit] Springbok Radio Preservation Society of South Africa

Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, This is a non-profit organisation which has collected and archives all sorts of material including sound recordings and photographs related to Springbok Radio. It currently houses the biggest sound recording archive of the station in the world and is an Internationally recognized sound archive. The archive holds many original recordings on tape, reel to reel and transcription discs and also has many private off-air recordings of the station.

[edit] External link

The Springbok Radio Preservation Society.