That is a beautiful piece of writing.
But this isn’t what I ordered!
I feel for you, it’s like going back in time when all the illegal, later legalized private/local radio stations popped-up back in the home country. Aunt May and Uncle Bob were behind the microphone and played all their and listener’s vinyl favorites. No CD’s, DVD’s or MP3’s yet.
You should watch some of those midlife-crisis karaoke/pill-selling channels that are located past the stocks and Buddhist monks but before the Rainbow porno channels. Some surreal shit.
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I’d like to have an English Radio channel in Taiwan, been here 5 years but just recently heard about ICRT, never knew it existed tried 3 times to listen to it,…its boring or mostly in Chinese so I stopped… I agree some news would be good.
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I’ve never given much thought to radio stations, but for some reason when I listen to ICRT, i just wonder what is their purpose and what are they trying to do and who is the target audience.
I’ve come to the conclusion that ICRT is just struggling so takes money for any purpose and doesn’t have the income or concern to do anything really good.
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I’ll give it another listen today.
Also available on some streaming sites and apps like free app Tunein Radio.
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They had a great working radio station about 20 years ago.
For me, a live presence most of the day.
Good local news.
Bilingual Advertisements.
A serious immigration based Chinese language lessons with Textbook.
Make Afu Program director.
Seriously I enjoy all of your live Talk content from the political roundtable to your tourism shows.
Language Links skits, if that’s yours, always gives me a chuckle.
Gave ICRT a fourth try and now I’m done. Why play so much music when the sound quality of music is so degraded vs Spotify, iTunes, it makes me captive to random music I don’t like at low quality sounds with all the Ads.
The only reason I’d listen to a local radio station is to hear local stuff or a TW perspective I cant get elsewhere in English or topics that are happening that day/week.
Otherwise I can tune into talks on Podcasts when I want and choose topics I want. Now I realize why I haven’t listened to Radio in ages…
They used to bring news, from the BBC early morning! Anyone with and internet connection can get that, except in the car … wait, there is such a thing as mobile internet now! 
Thank you!
That waiter sounds pissed, if I were Jeffery I’d check my replacement order carefully!
No clam chowder, thank you.
The only thing I remember about ICRT when I first came to Taiwan is the playing of super old pop songs from many years ago. That and the rare time I need to take a taxi the driver puts it on, probably thinking it will make me happy.
Ever since I signed up with SiriusXM many years ago, i gave up terrestrial radio in any country since I can access commercial free music everywhere either live or via the app since the satellite signal doesn’t reach Taiwan
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It’s got to be tough for them, and I wish I had some idea how they could be successful. But for me at least, what it comes down to is that I’ll probably never listen to terrestrial radio again, now that I’ve almost always got my phone, with a massive music library and/or commercial-free streaming service - offering music I like.
Yes, their BBC news used to be appealing - but that was before I could get it online any time I wanted. Even if they did offer a good Taiwan news service at a certain time in the evening (maybe they do!), I’d probably just want it as a podcast instead.
How is radio in North America faring? Isn’t angry talk radio the main (only?) source of profit?
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Check this out, its like a globe and you can click and tune into radio stations around the world.
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Probably the biggest problem for them is that foreigners in Taiwan come from many countries and speak different tongues, it used to be that people just listened to a US centered radio station in Taiwan because you wanted to get in touch with something familiar and were in need of local info.
Now people can have their home country’s radio station via internet.
What’s lacking tho is real local news.
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Yep.
Interestingly, I feel that it is in social media where we can filll this gap regarding the speed of news. Wghen we have something urgent, we put it directly on FB and Twitter, and that has a more timely response.