Bush Radio is Africa’s oldest community radio station project based in Cape Town, South Africa.

The idea of Bush Radio started in the 1980’s when community activists and alternative media producers came together to explore ways in which grassroots media could be used for social upliftment and as an alternative voice to the media available under apartheid.

Bush Radio was officially formed in 1992, after two years of community consultations of all aspects of the radio station. After repeatedly applying for a broadcast license to the apartheid government in 1992, Bush Radio then decided to broadcast illegally.

Watch a documentary on Bush Radio called Partial Eclipse by Richard Wicksteed in 1993. It features the illegal broadcast and the police raid on the station:

The response of the apartheid government was to confiscate the transmitter and other equipment, and to arrest and charge the Chairperson of the Board, Mervyn Swarts, and the Co-ordinator, Edric Gorfinkel to the full extent of the law.

Bush Radio members and volunteers organised placard demonstrations calling for the dropping of all charges, as well as the establishment of an “independent authority” to regulate broadcasting in South Africa. After a year of court hearings, the apartheid government dropped the case.

After the first democratic elections in 1994, the new government established the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) to regulate broadcasting in South Africa. Bush Radio was then issued with a one-year temporary license on the frequency 89.5FM, sharing the frequency with another radio station. The one-year temporary licenses were intended to be a temporary measure until the IBA was ready to issue four-year permanent licenses.

However, this process took far longer than anyone anticipated. Bush Radio was issued with a four-year permanent community radio license in July 2002 and another four-year licence in 2006. Since then, Bush Radio has been broadcasting for 24-hours a day, seven days a week.