Capital 958

History

Although programming in Chinese dialects was carried by the extant Singaporean radio station in its several incarnations from 1937 to 1945, it wasn't until 23 December 1945 where a de facto separate service in Chinese and Indian dialects, the Red Network, was created. Strictly speaking, an all-Chinese service was announced in December 1950, with the launch date set for 1 January 1951. The new network was known as the Green Network. One of the aims of the new service was to counter Communist propaganda in the region (alongside the Malay service). The station broadcast on 72 metres (7200 kilocycles, later redefined to 680 kHz on AM medium wave) from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. nightly, and was moved to 675 kHz in 1978 to conform with the Geneva Frequency Plan of 1975.

The station began FM transmissions on 95.8 MHz in 1967, and was renamed Radio 3 in 1982. With the launch of the contemporary mandopop station YES 933 in 1990, Radio 3 pivoted its programming to include more infotainment programmes during the daytime and early-evening hours. A new block of arts and cultural programming would now air from 8 to 10 p.m., including a programme of news bulletins in Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Hainanese, Hakka and Fuzhounese at 8 p.m. (each of which lasting three to five minutes), and Chinese operas.

The station rebranded as 95.8 City Channel (城市频道, initially promoted in English-language marketing as "95.8 City Sounds" and later "Capital Radio") on 16 December 1991, with no change in format. SBC stated that the new name was intended to evoke the essence of "city life". The AM signals of all SBC stations were discontinued on 1 January 1994.

In preparation for 24-hour broadcasts in December 1994, City Sounds recruited six new deejays: three of them from mainland China. The new deejays were under 30. The station also trained the China-born deejays to speak clearly to make them understandable to local listeners. RCS also had problems replacing its current batch of dialect newsreaders, with most of its newsreaders in their late 50s and 60s. Although the news scripts were the same as Mandarin, the script readers would need to improvise due to the differences in the structures of each dialect. The dialect news broadcasts also suffered from a lack of funding and professional newsreaders, with listeners preferring dialect songs than dialect news.

On 8 February 2017, the station moved from its long-time home of Caldecott Hill to the new Mediacorp campus at One-north.

References

References

1. "Mediacorp radio stations land 9 out of the top 10 spots in Nielsen survey".
2. (23 December 1945). "NEW RADIO SCHEDULES Begin TODAY". Sunday Tribune.
3. (12 December 1950). "CHINESE GET OWN RADIO". The Straits Times.
4. (23 December 1950). "Green Network To Fight Reds". The Straits Times.
5. (23 June 1967). "FM stereo test runs".
6. (17 July 1969). "Regular FM service on Radio S'pura".
7. (16 December 1981). "New Year gift: New-sound radio".
8. (4 March 1990). "As the dial turns".
9. (8 December 1989). "SBC to launch new English and Mandarin radio channels".
10. (16 December 1991). "Mandarin radio station renamed".
11. (8 January 1994). "MW band cut with no warning".
12. (7 July 1994). "Six new deejays for SBC's City Sounds". The Straits Times.
13. (21 August 1997). "I feel closer to the Hakka news". The Straits Times.
14. (21 August 1997). "S'poreans tune in to dialect songs, tune out dialect news". The Straits Times.