So, what age group should ICRT be aiming for?
I am guessing they are going to best serve the local community by playing music with clear english wording. Is that old fart or young fartlet music.
I hear my wifes music and am constantly amazed at just how much I can understand of the Chinese langauge in the songs so it must work the other way.
You don’t need to know you have bad taste to have bad taste. In fact, most people who do have bad taste think they don’t.
Ignorance is no defense.
As a side note, I’ve been told by a friend majoring in linguistics at Taida that some lecturers have told all their students not to listen to ICRT because the English level is horrible and frequently wrong, and because there’s too much Chinese.
Every time I’ve turned on ICRT recently I get one of two things: A) a REALLY sappy Western pop/R&B tune or B) an even sappier Chinese pop tune.
God, ICRT just SUCKS these days! I understand the market dictates and every wants to make a buck, but don’t those guys have any concsience at all? We can hear that crap on EVERY station on the dial, and yet here it is again on the one station that used to be for us!
On a side note, I was back home in California over summer, and for the four-odd weeks I was there, I had my dial glued to NPR (that’s National Public Radio). GOD I miss that. Even rush-hour freeway traffic jams were bearable, because there was always something interesting and educational on. I bought like 3 really good books just from hearing interviews that caught my attention.
All locals seem interested in hearing are shmaltzy pop crap, trival talk shows, or gossip… I’m surprised they even have a word for “variety” in Chinese 
Sorry to be so negative. I’m having a bad Taiwan year (well, let’s say it’s carried over from last year!)
God, I just tried ICRT again earlier, and heard some guy with broken English and a horribly thick accent mangling everything he got within spitting distance of. I mean for God’s sake, the guy couldn’t even figure out that pluralizing things involves (generally) putting an s on the end, not just saying the singular anyway. And he was hosting the “80s flush buck” too, apparently.
To be honest, what really pisses me off is that I remember hearing a couple years ago on the local news that there needs to be more catering to the Chinese-language speaking audience on ICRT. Which is what subsequently has happened.
Yet ironically, back in California where I come from, there are a host of newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations wherein a Chinese-speaker from either Taiwan, PRC or Hong Kong can submerse himself. I don’t know about the PRC or HK ones, but the Taiwanese ones are so Taiwan-focussed with regards to news that the viewer wouldn’t even know they were broadcast from America!
Some foreign entrepreneur with a communications background and diverse musical taste needs to start up a rival station…
Tetsuo, I think I heard the same thing as you. 
It’s the last time I will listen to ICRT. What crap! :fume:
2 more comments:
1: In response to “Why do any of you care?”: Because, as traffic signals do not have sensors and aren’t in synch, I’m stuck in my car half the day – and would like to use that time finding out what’s happening in the world. If I could get the Internet via my car radio, I’d be listening to NPR live-streaming and happy as a clam, but…
2: In response to the idea that anyone can learn English from ICRT: I’ve told students this a million times – for the average Taiwanese’s listening ability, hearing a statement once is totally inadequate for learning jack-all. Any would-be English learner who wants to improve her English through listening would be FAR better served by getting herself a decent ESL tape, which is exactly how I’ve achieved my rudimentary command of Spanish.
According to the tAIPEItIMES "WHATS HAPPENING TOMORROW BOX, 'THERE WIll be a big interview in Monday’s TT with two admin people from forumosa.com about the ICRT issue. I wonder how ICRT will react?
****{EDIT: not a long interview, but an 800 word oped commentary}
This will be major media deal on Monday. [Maybe]
Well if it’s two ADMIN people there’s really only two it could be…
double prost!~
Maoman and Goose Egg, I’d say
You’re not referring to Joseph Lin, are ya? Well, you’d better not be. :bouncy:
No, he’s one of the only ones on ICRT I actually have any respect for. This was one of these new kids, these “I studied in America for a few months so of course I speak English!”-sounding dickheads.
[quote=“bob”] Why not acknowledge that a good portion of the audience is made up of both English and Mandarin learners and provide liberal amounts of simulataneous translation during certain segments. The “Teaching English” segments could be expanded and presented in such a way as to be useful to students of Mandarin. And if the station really intends to represent the foreign community why not include more in the way of Mandarin lessons which could easily be structured in such a way as to be useful to English students.
Basically I think that ICRt occupies a unique position between two communities. More effort needs to be made in terms of 1) Helping both communities to learn the language of the other. 2) Helping to introduce the Taiwanese community to something other than pop favorites of twenty years ago.[/quote]
That is one single most constructive suggestion in this ENTIRE thread. Very pausible, too. There needs to be a B-A-L-A-N-C-E between the needs of the white-collar foreign community, which is mainly comprised of native English speakers, and the needs of the local while at the same time they can have a programme designed specifically to target at the South Asian community, which I believe is in fact in existence with Tito Gray’s AsiaNation. Everything should be presented in a way that the infomation that is given out would not only be helpful to native English speakers but also great English-learning material for the local ESL students and vice versa. So there you have a win-win situation for both parties. Everyone is happy.
But this one is stretching it a bit. I like the idea though. bob is so smart. :bouncy:
Basically what I’d most like to hear out of ICRT is:
I’d also like to hear less teenybopper dribble, but if they could meet the first three that would be entirely forgivable.
[quote=“Tetsuo”]Basically what I’d most like to hear out of ICRT is:
That has to be top of the list. REAL ENGLISH.
I had to turn ICRT off over the weekend. It was all awful.
They are never going to hit all things for all listeners.
I was thinking about this today. Only answer I can see with a limited budget would be to split it 3 ways.
Chinese/ English with local music content and English lessons through the day.
English with music for the 35 plus listeners.
English with music for the 21 plus 1 year contract mob. (The young farts)
Or, more limited budget.
Keep the talking segments the same but with people who can get their tongue forward when needed and manage a single tone.
Run 3 radio signals with music split 3 ways as above in say 9minute segments with fillers such as adverts to get the 9 each time.
Then everybody could be a little happy most of the time.
taipeitimes.com/News/edit/ar … 2003218826
Here’s the interview, only I was wrong, not an interview, a commentary piece written by two people.
Keep the ICRT true to its mandate
By Gus Adapon and Anthony van Dyck
Monday, Jan 10, 2005,Page 8
For many foreigners in Taiwan, International Community Radio Taipei (ICRT) provided a shared experience that transcended nationality, vocation, age and income. It connected us to one another and to the Taiwanese community at large.
That was a nice editorial. The only problem I see was where they referred to US1,000 a year as being “measley”. I wonder if that was a typo.
Richardm,
Technically, that is not an editorial. An editorial is written… unsigned …by a writer speaking for the entire newspaper. What you read is better called an editorial page commentary or an op-ed piece (for OPposite the EDitorial). Well, that’s what William Safire says…
What word would you replace ‘‘measly’’ with?
Richardm,
There IS an atomic typo here. Below. A PERIOD after “while”
QUOTE: Nelson Chang (張安平), chairman of the Taipei International Community Cultural Foundation which runs ICRT, feels that a lack of support, both from the foreign community and from the government, is hindering ICRT’s success. While. Chang has been extremely gracious and approachable to the foreign community personally, his dismay is unfounded.