International Community Radio Taipei (台北國際社區廣播電台 Pinyin: Táiběi Guójì Shèqū Guǎngbō Diàntái) (ICRT) is Taiwan's only English-language radio station. Prior to 1979, the station served the U.S. military community in Taiwan as the United States Armed Forces Network Radio Taiwan (AFNRT). When the United States broke diplomatic ties with the Republic of China in 1979, the American business community, with the help of the ROC government, reorganized the station into ICRT.
The radio station enjoyed immense popularity during its first fifteen years. The station offered two channels: AM 200 and FM 989. Both channels provided similar content of foreign pop and rock except that FM100 also had daily five-minute news at the top of every hour, one-hour morning and evening news programs, and three hours of classical music on Sunday nights.
ICRT's news coverage was renowned during the first fifteen years. Live top-of-the-hour news segments were broadcast twenty-four hours. Members of the news team would often travel to the on-site scene of the news event and make their reports there. Reporters also covered sensitive or controversial subjects about Taiwanese politics when Taiwan just came out of martial law.
The station started to suffer from operating challenges in the 1990s. The ROC government liberalized the radio market, forcing ICRT to face competition from other radio stations. AM576's programming lineup became weaker and lacked DJs to cover the entire twenty-four hours of air time, resulting in an automated juxebox system to replace the DJ. Eventually AM576 only broadcast the BBC World Service and CNN Radio and then went permanently off the air in 1999. News coverage in FM100 was gradually downsized. In 2000, ICRT moved from its original location on Yangmingshan to Taipei City.
In 2005, ICRT was sharply criticized by members of the Forumosa community for pandering to the local Mandarin-speaking community and abandoning its original audience and programming. Forumosa's administrators began an online petition and published an editorial to express their frustrations.
Despite these setbacks, ICRT's ratings remain within the top ten in Taiwan. It continues to provide important short East-West cultural exchange segments in its programming. ICRT also produces a show every Sunday to cater the growing population of Southeast Asian laborers and domestic workers in Taiwan.
Read more about International Community Radio Taipei: DJ Line-up
Famous quotes containing the words community and/or radio:
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