Radioactive Taiwan - Chapter 4 - Innovation, TT20, and more!

ICRT was the voice of American soft power in Taiwan between 1984, and 1990. Probably no other Western radio station on the planet had such a diverse listenership in terms of age, education and economics. American top 40 host Kasey Casem received dozens of song requests from Taiwan each week as our listeners thought Kasey was an ICRT employee. Kasey made numerous shoutouts to ICRT during his time as host of at 40. ICRT's country music show, their jazz and even classical show was also very popular with Taiwanese. Name another radio station with such a mixture of musical genres in their programming. Taiwan also worked with book publishing and record companies, to help eliminate pirated products. Taiwanese wanted to put an end to their reputation as pirates, and ICRT stepped into that battle and the publishing and record companies followed. ICRT began organizing and implementing extremely beneficial activities that allowed students from schools all across the country to participate, and grab the spotlight. Young Stars was a student music competition where university students had to compose original songs. At the time, Taiwan students needed an outlet, as they struggled with their new found political identity, and personal creativity. ABOUT:  An audio story of how International Community Radio Taipei covered sensitive political topics at a time when Taiwan was still under martial law. ICRT gave a voice to the opposition party and Dangwai movement, ideas that were banned or poorly covered by most of the pro-government media at the time. Find us at www.report.tw