History
The station started broadcasting in October, 1986 as Radio Metro to compete with the now defunct Radio Bop. Playing a mix of urban contemporary and bubblegum pop Radio Bop was able to able to reach black audiences in parts of the Transvaal by broadcasting on the AM band from the "independent" bantustan of Bophuthatswana where it was licensed. This prompted the SABC's then white management to launch Radio Metro which was put on air in about six months, from the planning stages.
The station launched the careers of many radio celebrities including Bob Mabena, Shado Twala and Lawrence Dube.
Over the years the station has had to compete with new players on the radio dial, including the very competitive Johannesburg radio market where two stations, Khaya FM and YFM, launched in mid/late 1990s have taken away some audience that would have normally gravitated towards Metro FM.
Read more about this topic: Metro FM
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Three million of such stones would be needed before the work was done. Three million stones of an average weight of 5,000 pounds, every stone cut precisely to fit into its destined place in the great pyramid. From the quarries they pulled the stones across the desert to the banks of the Nile. Never in the history of the world had so great a task been performed. Their faith gave them strength, and their joy gave them song.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)