December 11-17, 1998

Page 16

Special Report: Pinay soothes lonely expats with on-line radio music

By JOSEPH G. LARIOSA

With a SMIL (pronounced "smile"), a Filipina expatriate based in a suburb of
Orlando, Florida is hosting a pioneering interactive on-line radio program
being accessed by tens of thousands of Filipinos from around the world.
SMIL is acronym for Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, a computer
language which enables authors to bring radio and television-like content onto
the W3 (World Wide Web).

Last September 14, thousands of homesick overseas Filipinos found themselves
listening to recorded music interpreted by such Filipino singers as Gary
Valenciano, Florante de Leon, Freddie Aguilar and Nora Aunor as they stumbled
on the website, http://www.philradio.com/, "Musikang Pilipino, Musikang
Sariling Atin."

Considered the first of its kind, the program hosted by Kathy Llamas is
patterned after an ordinary Philippine radio music program that benefited
from a concept developed a year ago by computer industry leaders from US,
France and Japan which Ms. Llamas' host radio station perfected into
commercial use.

Ms. Llamas said that by the end of her two-hour daily (weekdays) program from
8 p.m. to 10 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) which is 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Manila
time that day, she got 4,000 "hits" (website visitors) and emails from around
the world. "I think I just struck a raw nerve from our nostalgic kababayans."

Less than two months into the cyberspace, the program, which Ms. Llamas has
since beamed to an international audience with a slogan "Kahit Saan, Kahit
Kailan," has logged 200,000 regular listeners (website visitors) and is
getting 50 to 60 emails a day.
"Suddenly, possibilities are limitless." according to the excited veteran
radio announcer who dedicates to her website visitors Filipino musical
recordings they requested before playing them.

Lately, backed by popular demand, Ms. Llamas launched a serious talk show
called "Kuro-Kuro ni Kathy and Kompany," where she welcomed call-in opinions
from listeners and emails from everywhere. The maiden topic dwelt on the
"Filipino's Crab Mentality (habit) … True or False?"

As it turned out, Ms. Llamas was able to put up a positive spin on this nasty
Filipino habit. She said, this Filipino habit may not really be pulling down
somebody on top of him at all. Instead, she added it is possible that it is
the other way around: it is the one on top who is pulling up the ones below.
Anybody can click on the inaugural program of "Kuro-Kuro …" by clicking it
from among its website selections.

Other program selections include "Voice of the Philippines," which features
current news from the Philippines, "Philippine Entertainment Weekly," which is
about show business news, and such other musicals as "Mga Himig ng Pag-Ibig"
and "Mga Kanta ng Lolo Ko."

Ms. Llamas was a rising radio star at the waning days of martial law in the
Philippines when she decided to sign off the air by immigrating to the United
States in 1986. But before leaving her DZRJ radio station in Sta. Mesa, Manila
for good, she left an altruistic bunch who accommodated in their booth a
fellow radio announcer, June Keithley, whose radio station -- Radio Veritas
-- was bombed into silence at the height of the People Power Revolution. As
every "rebolusyonario" at EDSA knew it, Ms. Keithley's clandestine radio
broadcast was the voice that was followed by the people during the three-day
Philippine version of the bloodless Velvet revolution.

When she joined the fourth generation of teeming Filipino economic refugees
to the United States shortly after the Revolution, Ms. Llamas was not really
overly optimistic of carrying on a promising four-year broadcast career she
left behind despite a degree in Mass Communications, majoring in Broadcasting
from the University of the Philippines, up in her sleeves.

After landing an uneventful broadcasting stint for two years in California,
she relocated to equally sunny Florida, which has a big slice of Spanish-
listening public. There, she resumed her broadcasting career for the last 10
years.

But she did not expect to land a broadcasting job in Spanish!
"Although, I could understand Spanish because of my Filipino heritage and
education, I don't speak the language like a native does and I certainly never
expected to do such a show." Ms. Llamas would now recall of her top-rated
Spanish program, "Romance con Catalina" (Romance with Catalina), taken after
her Spanish name. "I just considered it a challenge when I accepted the job."
This forced her to take up a refresher on Spanish. The Spanish program
featuring Spanish music became so popular that she was asked by her employer
to host more Spanish programs, namely "Viva Amor!" and "Boleros Classicos."

Last August, however, the general manager of her radio station WTRR in
Sanford, a small city, population, 32,387 (1990), 22 miles north of Orlando,
Joe Episcopo, asked her to host a Filipino program. Like the turtle in the
popular Filipino fable about the "Monkey and the Turtle," Ms. Llamas was
hesitant to take the offer although deep in her heart, she really loved to
take it even for a song.

Like her Spanish radio programs, this Filipino program called "PhilMusic
Radio" is not an ordinary radio program which has an assigned radio
frequency. Unlike an ordinary radio program, Kathy's kind of program is not only heard
in her own backyard in Sanford but also around the world and at the same time!
The downside is that when her listeners will greet her through email or live
by telephone from Paris, France or Hongkong or other parts of the world, she
loses her sense of time. She doesn't know if she should respond with "good
morning," "good afternoon" or "good evening."

Unlike an ordinary radio program in which radio waves travel through the air
and through space, this program is transmitted through phone lines, like a
fiber-optic communications cable used by cable television. Hence, there's no
more need to adjust the radio antenna to get a clear signal. The signal is
just as clear as an ordinary local on-air radio broadcast.

Like an ordinary radio program which can be recorded, Ms. Llamas'
"PhilRadio" program can also be "archived" so some of her selected programs
can be accessed later by listeners who missed the live on-line broadcast.

Still, her website may not yet reach a "uberportal" proportion, which Tony
Scott, managing director of the Silicon Valley office of the Chicago-based
A.T. Kearney management consulting group, defined as "an audience of almost 38
million people a month (who) would go to start their forays onto the Internet"
referring to the recent $4.2-billion acquisition of Netscape Communications
Corp. by American Online, Inc. But it can get there. Someday.

With 90MHz Intel Pentium processor or equivalent, 16MB of RAM, 14.4Kbps modem
(audio only); 28.8Kpbs modem (video), 16-bit sound card and speakers,
65,000-color video display card (video), Windows 95 operating system, Internet
connection and web browser as minimum requirements, anybody anywhere who wants
to listen to Filipino music, news, discussions, interviews, descriptions of
events and advertising will be able to access Ms. Llamas' website by visiting
"http://www.philradio.com/ and by downloading a free software "RealPlayer G2"
available in the website. After clicking past the Philippine national anthem
icon, anyone can click on any program selection and can hear Filipino music
and talk as soon as the "buffering" disappears from the taskbar of the
"G2-RealPlayer." The "buffering" lasts for about five or ten minutes.
As the "G2-RealPlayer" icon is minimized, one can do other tasks on the
computer as word processing while listening to the music or talk show portion.

This writer stumbled on Ms. Llamas's website through Dennis Villanueva, one
of Ms. Llamas' former radio colleagues back in the Philippines. Mr.Villanueva,
a former announcer at Channel 5 and newscaster/disk jockey at now defunct DXMT
in Davao city and now a Florida businessman, announces the Kathy's radio
station's "promo liners and the station I'D." Mr. Villanueva is ina-anak
(godson) of Mr. Ben Rodriguez, editor-in-chief of the Manila Bulletin, who
stood as "ninong" (sponsor) at his (Villanueva's) wedding. Mr. Rodriguez is my
boss in the Manila Bulletin where I file my Chicago datelined stories from the
US for that top leading daily newspaper in the Philippines.

--jglariosa@aol.com