Janelle Bernard

A few years ago, Guardian Me­dia took a de­ci­sion to re­view its ra­dio net­work.

And while Free­dom 106.5 FM was well es­tab­lished with var­i­ous au­di­ences, GML’s Com­mer­cial Man­ag­er for Ra­dio, To­va Sat­nar­ine-White, said there was al­so a de­sire to make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence in so­ci­ety by of­fer­ing a source of cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion and qual­i­ty en­ter­tain­ment.

Free­dom 106.5 FM was thus launched. It boasts a strong part­ner­ship with var­i­ous in­dus­try ex­perts as the foun­da­tion for its cur­rent af­fairs pro­grammes.

"We did not take light­ly the need for pro­gram­ming re­flect­ing what is trend­ing, and un­afraid of tack­ling sen­si­tive top­ics af­fect­ing every­day life. We want­ed to start a con­ver­sa­tion with a pur­pose, hence our part­ner­ship with in­dus­try ex­perts," To­va Sat­nar­ine-White ex­plained.

The of­fi­cial launch of the sta­tion took place on Wednes­day night at GM Labs, Guardian Me­dia Build­ing, St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain.

GML Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor Dr Kar­ri­an Hep­burn-Mal­colm said:

“It’s a big step in the his­to­ry of Guardian Me­dia. Those of you who fol­low Guardian Me­dia will know that the first com­pa­ny is more than one hun­dred years old. So, we have been around for some time and we have seen a lot for some time."

She added: “I think it was ob­vi­ous that in the ra­dio space, while there is an ap­petite for en­ter­tain­ment, we re­alise that there is al­so an ap­petite and a need for hard talk, so many is­sues, so many things that need to be ven­ti­lat­ed, and we felt that Free­dom 106.5 FM was the per­fect place to have those dis­cus­sions take place.”