SINGAPORE: National University of Singapore students plan own radio station

Chemistry student plans to start radio station on National University of Singapore campus

The Straits Times
Wednesday, December 29, 2004

By Maria Almenoar

Third-year chemistry undergraduate Randall Tan, 23, will be mixing more than chemicals soon, he will be mixing tunes for the rest of the students at his university.
 
Mr Tan is one of the 30 students at the National University of Singapore (NUS) who will be running Radio Pulze, the first tertiary online radio station not headed by communication studies students.

Broadcasts, set to start next May, will be live over the Internet, and students logging on to computers on campus will have direct access through an icon which will appear on their screens.

The university's Students' DJ Group, which will run the station, plans to have programmes during lunch breaks from 11.30am to 2.00pm.

Said Mr Tan, 23, president of the group: 'It seems like a small timeframe, but we're all undergraduate students and we want to gauge the response from students before we venture into bigger things.'

They plan to branch out to dedication programmes during special occasions like Valentine's Day, interview local bands and interact with their listeners through talk shows focusing on NUS issues.

About 10 students will work as deejays while the rest will source for advertisers, market the station and arrange for deejays to appear at other school gigs.

The cost of starting up the station, which includes buying equipment and possibly also building a place to house the station, is estimated to be between $100,000 and $200,000.

Currently, Ngee Ann Polytechnic and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have campus radio stations.

Ngee Ann Polytechnic started the first campus radio station - Radio Heatwave - in 1992. It is headed by its final-year mass communication students at the school of film and media studies.

NTU's online Fusion Radio is run by students from the school of communication and information.

Said Mr Tan: 'It's going to be quite a challenge since most of us don't have any background in communications or deejaying.

'But with our passion for music, hard work and the school's support, I think we'll do okay.'

Date Posted: 12/29/2004