Remembering visionary Issie Kirsh who launched 702, a platform for 'all voices' in 1980s apartheid South Africa

The 1980s were a decade of turbulent protest from the mass democratic movement. The National Party regime had a tight stranglehold on the country, and police and army clamped down on resistance with an iron fist.

The media was heavily censored, so it was a breakthrough when Issie Kirsh launched and turned Radio 702 into a talk radio station and provided a platform for an alternative narrative about what was going on in South Africa.

Writer and media trainer Chris Gibbons was a formative broadcaster on 702's airwaves for many years. He joins 702's Bongani Bingwa to remember the iconic Kirsh, who died over the weekend at 92.

Listen to the interview below:

"You must remember that back in 1980, there was only one broadcaster in South Africa and that was the SABC."

- Chris Gibbons, Broadcaster

Gibbons recalls how, a few years earlier, a young American had arrived in then-Swaziland and set up a short-wave transmitter to reach the lucrative markets of Johannesburg and Pretoria.

"The Swazi government were not terribly happy with that, and they called in the Kirsh family -  Issie in particular - to go and close the station down, to get rid of it. But Issie realised there was a potentially very lucrative commercial idea - and as you know, radio gets into your blood, into your DNA."

- Chris Gibbons, Broadcaster

Kirsh realised it was too far away and, at the time, decided to utilise Bophuthatswana, one of the 'homelands' established by the apartheid government of South Africa, as a base. 

"Issie figured, if he could put a transmitter there, he could get into the lucrative market and do very well indeed."

- Chris Gibbons, Broadcaster

In June 1980, Channel 702 was launched, the 'Rainbow of Sound', explains Gibbons.

"So in June of 1980, we launched channel 702, the 'rainbow of sound'. It was independent, and it was going to talk to South Africans of all races - everybody."

- Chris Gibbons, Broadcaster

Gibbons explains that while it all looked 'terribly promising', the commercial side did not work.

"The main sponsors came along and said, 'Issie, you either have to make a choice. You either go for the black market or the white market. What's it going to be, because you can't do both?' South Africa at that point was not ready for it."

- Chris Gibbons, Broadcaster

Kirsh made a difficult decision to go with the white market. For the first four years, 702 was a music station targeting affluent whites aged 16-34. SABC then smartly launched other music stations, including Radio Highfield, in competition.

"They had a big impact on our market with their FM signals against our medium-wave signal. So, Issie made the extraordinary decision between 1985 and 1987 to take a music station and turn it into a talk station. And that was when 702 as we know it now really, really took off."

- Chris Gibbons, Broadcaster

"Suddenly, there was a platform for people to voice their opinions, to argue about what the new South Africa should look like, what the government was doing. In 1987, South Africa was almost in a state of civil war, and Mandela was still in prison. It was a remarkable step, and it worked brilliantly, and for that we all owe Issie a great deal of debt."

- Chris Gibbons, Broadcaster

702 went on during that crucial time to capture the historical events unfolding in South Africa as they happened. 

"We had every single foreign correspondent stationed in South Africa using us as their prime source of news. If you wanted to know what was going on in South Africa in those years, you went to 702 and you went nowhere else."

- Chris Gibbons

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the interview.