The Middelburg Observer reported about the in-house fight between radio presenters and members of the board. Things got out of hand, causing the station to go off air and unhappy presenters occupying the GMFM offices out of protest.<\/p>\n
Since then, a community meeting held on 18 August, saw some drastic actions taken.<\/p>\n
The board of directors were told to resign and an interim board was elected during a follow-up meeting.<\/p>\n
They were tasked with investigating the allegations and grievances raised by the presenters. The outcome of their investigation will be made public as soon as the investigation is done.<\/p>\n
The new board, chaired by the acting station manager, Johan Mtsweni, say that the previous station manager was released of his duties after it came to light that he was still taking orders from the old board.<\/p>\n
A power struggle between the old and the new boards ensued, with the old board refusing to relinquish power because they felt that the interim board was more of a task team than a management structure.<\/p>\n
A planned meeting with the community involving the old and interim boards collapsed when the old board did not pitch.<\/p>\n
Since then things have returned somewhat to normal with the GMFM airwaves once again buzzing to entertain somewhat 40 000 listeners.<\/p>\n
“Yes we have dropped a little in listener numbers but that is bound to pick up now that everything is back to normal,” says an optimistic Mr Mtsweni.<\/p>\n
Members of the old board did not reply to messages asking for their comment.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Be part of the solution: GMFM plans to host Heritage Celebrations on 27 September outside their offices. During the day, they will be raising funds to help them get back on their feet.<\/p>\n
Presenters will be washing cars and they invite the community to come and support them and meet the newly structured team.<\/p>\n
“This will be an event to reconnect with listeners and local businesses,” says Mr Mtsweni.<\/p>\n
The day will see music, traditional food, performances by cultural groups, local DJs and artists. For enquiries contact the GMFM marketing team on 013 242 1803\/4 or on 078 313 6944 or 072 962 6299.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Things are looking up at GMFM. The radio station is back on air under the watchful eye of a new acting station manager.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":18813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news-headlines"],"category_labels":{"Category":"News","SubCategory":"Local news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}