The #SaveLigwalagwalaFM campaign team’s forerunner, Past Simon Mdluli, described the line-up changes of the DJs as “biased and full of nepotism”, hence their new marching campaign is dubbed #SaveSABC/Ligwalagwala FM: Bring back Sweet Mike, T-Boy, Pastor Portia, Carol Malumane and the others.

Recently, the SABC-owned siSwati broadcasting radio station, L It has become a norm that SABC radio stations reinvent themselves continuously, hence the changes implemented in April every year. The shift to automation has necessitated an adjustment to the lengths on some shows (00:00 – 04:00 on weekdays and 00:00- 05:00 on weekends).

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Ligwalagwala FM’s acting manage, Thembi Madubandlela, said, “We are repackaging the brand in line with operational cost containment measures to attain financial sustainability. The past year has been hard globally due to Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on business; the station is no exception, hence the basis for rationing some time channels and exploring automation for the first time.”

“This will definitely not impact our on-air delivery. Listeners can still rely on the station for credible content, news and everything entertainment. Listeners may, however, rest assured that day time slots will retain their duration and show names.” The cited presenters, due to the line-up changes, were moved to new slots while the other stations’ DJs retained their slots.“

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“We don’t want the changes that Madubandlela made as listeners of Ligwalagwala FM. We want them to be returned to their previous slots. We smell that Madubandlela’s changes on the line-up was biased and it was influenced by putting her friends to some slots and leaving our favourite DJs in the gutter,” Mdluli barked.

“How can you reshuffle T-Boy from his usual slot, Vukasambe, and placed him on the Weekend Wrap? T-Boy has more than 1,8 million followers on the radio. And if you do that you are killing the station,” he said.

The non-profit organisation, #SaveLigwalagwalaFM team marched to the SABC regional offices to deliver the memorandum of demands on the station on March 16.

According to Mdluli, since then, they have not received feedback from the SABC, albeit giving the embattled public broadcaster seven days to respond.

“When we met the national, regional and Ligwalagwala FM management we were clear that at no point must the proposed changes result in a situation where listeners would have to lose some of the programmes or shows without a scientific measure to determine the viability or listenership of such a show, and that listeners’ input be solicited when programming and scheduling changes are discussed,” Mdluli said.

The SABC has retrenched 621 employees in a major shake-up amid the cash-strapped national broadcaster’s turnaround process and it was reported to have been in crisis mode a day after mass retrenchments on April 2. The operations manager (regional manager) and business manager (station manager) Mpumalanga combo vacancies for Ligwalagwala FM and Ikwekwezi FM have not yet been filled.