Listening To The Radio Popular In Singapore

Press, Volume C, Issue 29477, 1 April 1961, Page 12

Listening To The Radio Popular In Singapore

In Singapore, a city of 1,750,000 inhabitants, seveneighths of whom are Chinese, everybody listens to the radio, according to Mr C. H. Cook, manager of radio station 3ZB, who has returned after a year there as a Colombo Plan consultant with Radio Singapore. The popularity of radio listening is helped by the Chinese habit of having the radio turned up to full volume “In. Chinatown, a radio turned on two storeys up in a building can be heard down on the street, and you may find 200 people gathered on the footpath listening to it,” Mr Cook said. Singapore had the best broadcasting system in South-east Asia, said Mr Cook, being up till now run on 8.8. C. lines. It had had no commercial broadcasting section, however. It had been his task to advise the Government on the establishment of commercial radio, and to help to establish a trained commercial-radio staff. Mr Cook said that he had worked With about 460

Asians —a Chinese, Malays, Tamils, and Eurasians—and

had found them "very, very fine people.” He had found them keen and hard-working. Many had been prepared to work 70 to 80 hours a week, without overtime, to learn the techniques of commercial broadcasting. The population of Singapore was not fully literate, and television was not yet established, Mr Cook said. The radio was therefore an enormously important means of communication and entertainment— and the Chinese were avid listeners. “On the radio they just love detective thrillers, and morbid love stories,” Mr Cook said. Radio Singapore had now converted part of its radio time to a commercial service, in three broadcasting channels, one in Chinese, one in English, and one in Malay and Tamil, said Mr Cook. “Television does not exist in South-east Asia.” said Mr Cook. ‘They are just beginning to dicker with it now, and have got an expert from Brisbane to go over to advise them. But television sets are already on sale in the shops.” While in Singapore, Mr Cook, with his wife and daughter, lived in an attractive home set in acres of narkland in the suburb of Tanglin. His daughter attended a British Army school, and passed the matriculation examination of the University of Malaya.