In 1960, the South African Broadcasting Corporation launched Radio Bantu as a fully-fledged station for African listeners in their different languages. Intended to operate as the apartheid State’s propaganda channel, vernacular radio came to find resonance among millions of African listeners. This study provides an historical analysis of Northern Sotho radio during the apartheid era, exploring the motives for its establishment and its control mechanisms over listenership, staffing and programming. It argues, firstly, that while black announcers in general shaped the nature of North Sotho ethnicity through their work as broadcasters, some quite wilfully subverted white control by slipping in unseen messages to their listeners through the thicket of language. Secondly, the channel’s popularity among listeners was determined not only by the wide variety of programmes but, most importantly, by the novelty of North Sotho broadcasting on mass radio by native speakers of the language. And finally, the founding of Radio Bantu created opportunities for upward mobility for black announcers, despite the racism they endured at the workplace. For writers and producers, radio became an outlet for intellectual skills that could not easily be employed elsewhere. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
