Wellington will lose its long-running gay radio programme Gay BC after its 20th anniversary session this Saturday morning. Longtime presenter Hugh Young says GayBC has managed to keep going with only four people working on it for the past year. "We can't keep it up, and nobody has seriously offered to take it off our hands," he says GayBC's presenters believe a number of factors have worked against a continuation of the programme including the decline in popularity of AM broadcasting and young people's preference for FM for music, and the rise of the internet as an information source. “With gay programmes on mainstream TV, gay love on Coro St, and same-sex kisses in advertisements, openly gay MPs and even a gay cabinet minister, glbt culture and awareness is much more mainstream than it was when we started out,” says Young. He believes that much of the need for social and legal change which inspired the programme in its early days is a thing of the past but is concerned about closeted gay folk for whom the programme has always been a discreet source of information and companionship. The 20th anniversary programme can be heard on 783 Access AM from 11-12 this Saturday morning and on streaming audio at http://www.accessradio.org.nz/. More information or input into the content of the final programme can be gained by contacting jimdwaters@hotmail.com .
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Thursday, 3rd February 2005 - 12:00pm