08 Apr 2019

Botswana’s first commercial radio station, RB2 held a family fun day in Francistown over the weekend to celebrate 27 years of unparalleled dominance of the airwaves.

The event, which was held at Molapo Leisure Garden featured a whole host of local DJs and popular RB2 presenters such as Sylvester Ntshinogang aka DJ Sly, Thabo Bolokwe aka T.H.A.B.O and many others.

Some of the activities on the day included DJ’s competitions, dance competitions, horse riding, motorbike riding and jumping castle as well as quad biking.

The celebration for the urban national broadcaster, which started airing in April 1992, also provided an opportunity for other government parastatals to exhibit and showcase their products and services in the likes of Botswana Housing

Corporation, Independent Electoral Commission, Botswana Power Corporation, Lawa Holdings, Nissan, Express Credit, and others.

Highlights of the day were the interaction and information sharing with RB2 presenters such as Resego Motlhokathari, DJ Sly, T.HA.BO, Teto Tsile aka Tido, Botho Mothodi and Cliff Kepaletswe.

The station manager, Sakaeyo Jannie said in an interview on the sidelines of the celebration, that the event was meant to take the station to Batswana.

He said the station’s mandate was to inform the public at large about government’s programmes and also to entertain the youth using the two goventment’s stations around the country being RB1 and RB2 as well as Botswana Television (Btv).

The veteran radio broadcaster explained that though RB2 was the first station to commercialise, its focus was not entirely on making money but on informing Batswana about developmental issues.

He said the main objective of this year’s celebration was to make it easy for youth and small businesses in Francistown to network with the stations’s employees.

Jannie applauded different stakeholders for the roles they played in the success of the radio station.

He explained that the radio station had enountered some challenges when it was started.

One of the challenges, he said was the fact that the station was based in Gaborone and could not be reached in other areas.

The coverage expansion, he said was only achieved later.

Also, he said they had to change some rules and regulations so that the station could  be able to engage youth; hence the engagement of club DJs such as DJ Sly and DJ Fresh.

He pointed out that the station’s future plan was to change the landscape of commercial broadcasting as they now have Btv as competition.

“Botswana Television is all about immediacy therefore, the station intends to always be there in the business industry by being spontaneous at all times and to be on top of the marketing game,” he said.

Meanwhile, other areas where RB2 have celebrated its milestone are Molepolole, Maun and Maunatlala. ENDS