I always love listening to radio during any type of disaster or emergency just to see If or how it's being covered. The metro Manila area in the Philippines was swamped Saturday with major flooding -- the worst in decades according to reports. Dozens were killed with up to three hundred thousand people displaced from their homes.
With that said, I've been listening to a couple of stations for the past few days. I've checked out Wave 89.1, Magic 89.9, and RX 93.1. All of them are CHR/popular hits / variety stations in Manila with English language programming. I didn't check any of the news-specific stations, and it should be noted that these stations are not normally associated with news, weather, or traffic. In fact I'm surprised that stations like RX and Magic never have news or even local weather reports.
Keeping in mind that people have criticized the Philippines for lack of preparation for disasters and the fact that the media is not nearly as advanced as one would find in the United States or Europe, RX 93.1 has done relatively outstanding coverage. I've been able to consistently pull up the online stream and they've had jocks on day and night doing their best to put out information. Most of their interactions with listeners is coming from online media; they are not, for example, filling the airwaves with official news or weather reports or bringing on guests to the air. Instead they've been taking texts and facebook / twitter messages from listeners.
The other two stations were kind of disappointing. I could not pull up Wave or Magic streams for most of Saturday or Sunday, however both were on air as of Monday morning local time. In fact, one listener called into Magic 89.9 asking why the jocks couldn't broadcast emergency information and the jocks said their equipment wasn't working or connected. They certainly weren't ignoring the problem, but it was clear they couldn't handle the mess.
Did anyone else catch any local coverage? If nothing else, I'm extremely impressed with RX 93.1 for working with what was available.
With that said, I've been listening to a couple of stations for the past few days. I've checked out Wave 89.1, Magic 89.9, and RX 93.1. All of them are CHR/popular hits / variety stations in Manila with English language programming. I didn't check any of the news-specific stations, and it should be noted that these stations are not normally associated with news, weather, or traffic. In fact I'm surprised that stations like RX and Magic never have news or even local weather reports.
Keeping in mind that people have criticized the Philippines for lack of preparation for disasters and the fact that the media is not nearly as advanced as one would find in the United States or Europe, RX 93.1 has done relatively outstanding coverage. I've been able to consistently pull up the online stream and they've had jocks on day and night doing their best to put out information. Most of their interactions with listeners is coming from online media; they are not, for example, filling the airwaves with official news or weather reports or bringing on guests to the air. Instead they've been taking texts and facebook / twitter messages from listeners.
The other two stations were kind of disappointing. I could not pull up Wave or Magic streams for most of Saturday or Sunday, however both were on air as of Monday morning local time. In fact, one listener called into Magic 89.9 asking why the jocks couldn't broadcast emergency information and the jocks said their equipment wasn't working or connected. They certainly weren't ignoring the problem, but it was clear they couldn't handle the mess.
Did anyone else catch any local coverage? If nothing else, I'm extremely impressed with RX 93.1 for working with what was available.
