29 years On Air: Pretoria FM celebrates milestone
From its roots broadcasting from second-hand equipment to South Africa’s largest Afrikaans community radio station, Pretoria FM celebrates 29 years of broadcasting.
Since its inception almost 29 years ago, Pretoria FM has grown from strength to strength.
Its first broadcast on September 18, 1993, by Rev. Mossie van der Berg took place from Donkerhoek, east of Pretoria.
Using old written-off equipment, Johannes van der Walt said the first words from the station: “Dit is Pretoria wat omroep, u luister na Radio Pretoria, die stasie te velde.” (“This is Pretoria broadcasting, you are listening to Radio Pretoria’s field station”).
Since then, Pretoria FM has fought for its spot on our radio waves. Today, it is a well-known, successful and biggest Afrikaans community radio service in South Africa. It reaches across five provinces from eight different broadcasting stations.
In May 2013 at the MTN Radio Awards, Radio Pretoria won the award for radio station with the most loyal listeners. It won this again in 2021. This year, it has been nominated for three awards at the South African Radio awards that will be held on November 26. These were for drama programme of the year with Malchus, news and actuality show for Klankkoerant Oggend, and news bulletin reader for Anton Meijer.
The station is also responsible for the Aitsa Afrikaans Music Awards, which started on October 16, 2019, at the Moreleta Auditorium.
“Afrikaans music will always be part of our lives and our humanity and, therefore, Pretoria FM offers the Aitsa Music Awards to give recognition to everyone who entertains Afrikaans South Africans in this way with quality music,” said Pretoria FM CEO Hennie Koortzen.
This year’s Aitsa Music Awards will take place at Choose Life Church in Pretoria on November 29.
In May 2015, the station received a licence from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa), a status that it spent many months trying to obtain. In July 2015, Radio Pretoria joined its sister stations, Radio Drakensberg, Radio Dagbreek, Radio Magaliesberg, Radio Tafelkop, Radio Naboom, Radio Kransberg, Radio Ysterberg and Radio Wolkberg under the collective banner, Pretoria FM.
In 2019, the station opened a satellite booth at the new Loftus Park Centre.
Pretoria FM is a community-based radio station based in Pretoria. Its programmes are aimed at Afrikaans-speaking audiences who are passionate about music. They broadcast for 24 hours every day on 104.2 FM.
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