About Chris Jordan - Qualifications & experience

The first of many Chris Jordan Media workshops took place in Maseru, the heart and capital of Lesotho. Working with this hip CHR urban youth station and a small team of talented individuals from a broad spectrum of backgrounds, the workshop aimed to move MXXL to the forefront of young commercially broadcast radio. See more about my time with MXXL 91.0 FM here.

Working with urban youth station Alex FM is always very special. To focus heavily on the community driven issues and format content that reflected municipal, street culture, lifestyles, music and people of the Alexandra residents has always been an important aspect to my immersion in collaborating within a radio format that dominates the South African landscape. Here are a few letters of recommendation from the Alex FM management and their shareholders:

Dear Mr Chris Jordan Thank you for the radio workshop presentation (A word on Radio) we are excited to write this letter and show our appreciation for the enormous radio presentation you gave us as the Alex FM staff. We are confident to say that we have gained a lot of insight from your presentation and we are now in a position of nurturing Brand Alex FM to be one of the best community radio in South Africa. I will also like to take this opportunity to please send my words of appreciation to the 3rd year students who attended the workshop, we really enjoyed their presence and their radio engagement. I hope that this workshop has paved way for us to have future relationships and radio engagements.

Sincerely, Samuel Ramodike – Imaging and Audio Content Development Manager Cell: 072 559-0306 | Office: 011 440-5419 | Email: sammy@alexfm.co.za | Web: www.alexfm.co.za

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Colleagues, Please let me share with you my observations about the Workshop on Saturday whilst it is still fresh in my mind.

1. Thiadi Funeral Home It was a good initiative to invite a presentation of this nature. The positive interest from the staff indicates that the Board and management need to seriously consider the matter.

2. Motivational Speaker Confidence is an exceptional motivational speaker. We definitely need to invite him again to do a presentation to the board and management. I like the fact that he is motivated by his father who was not educated but struggled and manage to educate all his 4 siblings through University. The guy is good.

3. Chris Jordan from Radio 101 a Trainer. I’m told Chris trained TK and Sammy. He was on the podium for almost two hours but it was the most exciting two hours. He really encouraged participation from all of us and it was exciting. That was the highlight of the workshop. I’m seriously contemplating changing careers. Good choice TK and your Management team.

Warm regards, Bongane Ka Mandita Cell No 072 457 2357

The National Community Radio Conference Week was held in Bloemfontein in 2018, and hosted over 100 community radio station, marketing and news managers for a 3-day workshop and conference. The event is aimed at empowering management from all over the country by bringing in expert professionals to guide, facilitate and realign radio practices that can practically effect positive change in each of these stations. Alongside radio consultant Tim Zunkel and News Editor Cathy Ndlodlo, I joined the team to lead the Marketing and Advertising regiment of the conference.

As of the last quarter of 2018, I will be working with the powerhouse student community brand of Tuks FM. For over 30 years, Tuks FM has been a force to be reckoned with, focusing on the greater student and youth community of the Gauteng region. Always relevant and on trend, Tuks FM has always held a mission statement of making and breaking radio boundaries. Working with their marketing and digital teams will be my main focus for the foreseeable future and as our relationship develops into the new year. Visit their website here.

GaySA Radio is a bit of a “rags to rags to getting richer” story. Broadcasting in the online space and to a very specific demographic of the LGBTQ+ community is no easy feat. I have been lucky enough to work with the station since its inception in February 2015. The station broadcasts from a living room in Pretoria but has notched many accomplishments with around 44 000 unique listeners, 3 Liberty radio award nominations, and a nationally lead boycott of US homophobic pastor Steven Anderson into the country, that successfully had the SA government side with the station’s efforts to eliminate hate speech (which eventually denied him passage). At first I thought it was going to be rather straight forward working within this format, but as time quickly passed by I realised that the online space plays by different rules to the terrestrial space – with listener behaviours, new media practices, logistics, marketing and sales all vastly working differently. Secondly, LGBTQ+ specific content begs the question of how much is dedicated to explicitly focusing on the community and how much is dedicated to life stage commonalities both in and out the community. This has truly been a growth experience and I look forward to our future together. Visit them online here.

From March 2017, I have been a G-Suite Trainer with OpenNetworks. Working with prestigious clients like Shoprite/Checkers, Tradebridge, and Pioneer Foods, I have executed strategies related to project problem solving, user process change management, and staff skill facilitation in these powerful products and services. Learn more about this premier Google Cloud Partner here.

In 2012, I started lecturing Radio Broadcast studies at South Africa’s leading tertiary institution for media studies, Boston Media House. A core focus of my role here requires working with students to build the next generation of radio practitioners. Since 2014, my published textbook “A Word on Radio” has been used for the 2nd year syllabus, and also formed the content for the bi-yearly semester short course in Radio Presenting. I am happy to report that it has also been renewed for another cycle, effectively for its fifth year. Click here to learn more about Boston Media House.

An exciting collaboration with media distribution company Next Entertainment requires me to create content like film reviews and opinion pieces based on their newest releases, also allowing me to collaborate and help promote their various competitions and promotions. Visit them here.

Moutse Community Radio Station (MCRS) was founded by members of the Rural Women’s Movement (RWM), a national organisation in South Africa, which lobbies around issues of concern to rural women. Rural Women’s Movement (RWM) changed it’s name to National Movement of Rural Women (NMRW). Listen to the station here.

Pheli FM is a Community Radio station based in Atteridgeville, Pretoria. The station aims is to capture and keep the imagination of listeners in Atteridgeville and surrounding areas. The coverage spectrum of the signal provides a wider coverage from areas that also include: Madibeng Municipality (Greater Hartebeesport), Brits, Tshwane Municipality – Lotus Garden, Atteridgeville, Laudium, Olivenhoutbosh, Valhalla, Wierdepark, Centurion, Pretoria CBD, Hatfield, Pretoria West, Danville, Kwaggasrand, the entire Pretoria North. For more information please visit Pheli Fm.

2020 got off to an exciting start with Chris Jordan Media training the board members at SMU FM 97.1. As the community radio station at Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University, their vision and mission states the following: “SMU FM was formerly called Channel Med and later transformed into the present Radio SMU, which is established as a non-profit organisation (NPO) i.e. not for gain but to provide a community radio service to the SMU and the broader community of Ga-Rankuwa and its neighbouring communities”. Click here for more information on SMU FM.