World Radio Day: Celebrating the ingenuity of YFM

Radio has been considered an intimate and credible medium of mass communication but has transcended that to become an avenue for social change and impact. And this has been a major operational driving force across the Y triangle (YFM Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi).
 
The pioneer of urban radio in Ghana, YFM, is a hallmark of radio excellence, social change, pacesetters and is a springboard for persons in showbiz circles.
YFM is not far from the thematic area of this year’s world radio day of encouraging representation and promoting diversity in the newsroom, with teams comprised of diverse society groups.
At YFM studios, you will be met with a variety of radio hosts, presenters and producers from all around the world. The studios of YFM is not polarized with only male employees, but a proper balance of both genders which increases their level of productivity and creativity.
 
Where social media and audience fragmentation can put us in media bubbles of like-minded people, radio is uniquely positioned to bring communities together and foster positive dialogue for change. In Ghana, radio stations like YFM (Accra, Takoradi and Kumasi) are fore runners when it comes to engaging listeners via social media and undertaking social campaigns.
 
Disclosing your HIV status is the morally upright thing to do in relationships. This means telling your sexual partners the result and date of your last HIV test and having your partners tell you the result and date of their last HIV test. But this is rarely done and discussed in Ghana. Identifying the severity of this matter, YFM through its late night program ‘Room service’ started the ‘Know your status’ Campaign.
The know your status campaign is YFM’s way of reaching out to its numerous fan base and the general public to voluntarily test for their human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) status. Voluntary testing is one of the major ways to reduce the prevalence rate of the disease.
 
The biggest community-based entertainment concert on Ghana’s event calendar, Area Codes, organized by YFM also serves as a springboard for the careers of underground artiste to come into the limelight. The shared platform between seasoned and underground artistes in Ghana to thrill music lovers in the country, also provides upcoming artistes the well-deserved break they have been waiting for. The four ‘S’ (Samini, Sarkodie, Shatta Wale, Stonebwoy), Kwesi Arthur, Yaa Pono, Jupiter and other music giants on the Ghanaian music scene can attribute their success to the YFM area codes and Jam.
Speaking about the Y triangle’s impact on the urban radio space in Ghana, Director of Global Media Alliance Broadcasting Company (GMABC), Timothy Karikari stated that, “Previously, radio stations were treated as sacred places that everyone yearned to see. But they were designed such that it was locked up in a hidden room.
Only booked guests could see or unless you go for a tour or excursion. But once again, with YFM’s unique nature and history of setting standards and being a trailblazer and its desire to give listeners the radio experience, YFM opened the first see-through studio in Ghana where shoppers had the opportunity to see their favourite presenters and guests’ whiles shopping at the mall.”
He furthered that world radio day is a day worth celebrating and urged all to come on board to revel the day and note the transitions radio has gone through in the past decades.