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Public radio silent pending repairs on Friday
Saipan, Tinian, and Sinapalo, Rota listeners to local broadcasts of National Public Radio, BBC World Service, jazz, classical blues, folk, and other non-commercial programming have been doing without since equipment problems caused service interruption on Sunday night. Repairs are scheduled for Friday morning.
“It’s a feature of our system,” said Darryl Taggerty, president and chief operating officer of Marianas Educational Media Services, Inc., the nonprofit organization that provides public radio services in the CNMI. “We designed our stations to be financially viable within the capacity of our local listeners, businesses and government to support. Unfortunately, it takes longer to recover from technical problems. We can’t simply call friends at other local stations for spare parts.”
Public radio for the Northern Marianas broadcasts on 89.1FM. Radio station K206BM features a full-time simulcast of Guam’s KPRG-FM. Marianas Educational Media Services agreed to perpetuate noncommercial radio programming in the CNMI when the Nothern Marianas College re-assigned its radio station budget to core academic programs in 2009. (PR)
