By Jesse Ampah Owusu
Accra, April 27, GNA – Radio Univers, a University of Ghana (UG) campus-based radio station, has celebrated its 30 years of radio broadcast on the UG campus and in the country as a whole.
The Radio Station was established in 1994 during the early years of Ghana’s return to Constitutional rule, and has served the campus community and the country with its programmes.
Dr Abubakari Sidick Ahmed, Radio Univers Station Manager, said it had over the years been a campus-community based and socially responsible radio that empowered, educated, and entertained.
He said they had promoted research and innovations through educational content, initiated development conversations and nurtured talents in the broadcasting space.
Dr Ahmed said they intended to integrate semi-commercial practices in their operations while preserving their core campus-community-oriented values, ensuring that they remained connected with their roots.
He said that was to make the Station more commercially viable to enable it rake in enough revenue to run operations and commitments.
“Radio Univers will transition to a
semi-commercial business model, which strategic shift will be achieved through various revenue generation initiatives, partnerships with businesses, local and international NGOs, development
and donor organisations.”
He said the success of the plan hinged on a restructuring of skilled professionals, volunteers, and national service personnel, working in a collaborative environment in part and full-time roles.
Mr Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, Chairperson of the National Media Commission, urged the Station and the media to continue to devote airtime to stories of national importance, including those that excited policy debate and controversy, devoid of personal attacks and prejudices.
“These are the issues or matters that Radio Univers must take to the academics, notably constitutional experts, sociologists and psychologists to enable them proffer intellectual and critical perspectives and the way forward.
“More important, we need to underscore the fact that democracy is about rules and regulations, about who has the right to make decisions and choices or alternatives but not about superiority or inferiority in sharing viewpoints,” he added.
Mr Albert Kwabena Dwumfour, President of the Ghana Journalists Association, urged media professionals to continue to uphold professionalism and ethical standards in their reportage.
He said as practitioners they needed to be mindful of their utterances and insist on decent messages on their platforms, especially as the country geared towards the 2024 elections.
The genesis of Radio Univers is traced to the transformative era of the late 1980s and early 1990s, a period that heralded a shift from authoritarian regimes to liberal democracies, fostering a diverse and pluralistic media landscape.
It was established by a collaborative effort of the University’s management then to augment the country’s early 4th Republican democracy efforts and to provide alternative media to the national state broadcaster, the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation.
The Station since its establishment has churned out many media practitioners, including Bernard Avle, Kafui Dey, Shamima Muslim, and Bola Ray.
GNA