How far away are we from getting our own local Life FM station on the FM band?
That is a great question and unfortunately one we don’t actually have the answer to.
Over two years ago we applied for an FM licence with the intention of quickly getting two stations on-air, one in Suva and one in Nadi. Since that time we have met with ministers, phoned, emailed and generally inquired at every opportunity, but so far no licence has been forthcoming. Our aim is still to be able to provide trusted Christian media to EVERY Fijian, we are just aiming to start with 2 stations and build from there.
What’s the hold up?
As best we understand it, the Fiji government is going through a major review of spectrum management. That’s radio, TV, WiFi, UHF, VHF, and generally everything that uses the electromagnetic spectrum. This is a limited resource that has to be carefully managed, both now and into the future.
Unfortunately UCB Fiji’s application for a broadcast FM licence has been caught up in this complicated review.
What can we do?
Most importantly we can pray!
Please pray for the granting of our licence, as well as our team, and for our preparedness for when we are granted our licence. Pray too for our government as they grapple with the wider issues of frequency allocations.
We actually have the playout system, transmitter, and antenna here in Fiji just waiting to be installed. We don’t yet have a licence or a suitable site, so that’s another prayer need. We need to find a suitable site, one that will give us good coverage while not costing ‘an arm and a leg’ in rental.
There is a lot we can be doing.
We need supporters. Right now we need a team of people committed to praying for our ministry. Plus once Life FM is on air locally we will need announcers, support staff, volunteers and a place to call ‘home’ to our broadcast operations. That will take money to achieve, so we also need to be building our team of donors and financial supporters.
We are very grateful to Outfitters Fiji for their generosity in allowing us to work from their facility. We are also grateful to each one of our growing-number of supporters for their prayers, words of encouragement and gifts that have enabled us to get this far.
So keep coming back to our website to check on progress!
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And don’t forget to download our free app, so you can listen to Life fm Fiji now and anytime, and read The Word for Today (and much more) all on your phone.
