Letter to Karimah Tan Abdullah

Puan Karimah Tan Abdullah,
General Manager,
Time Highway Radio.


2nd Ocotober 1997

First of all allow me to place on record my thanks to your organization for having taken me in as a part-time DJ at your radio station for the past year or so. However, I have been greatly disillusioned by the very shabby treatment that I have been accorded all this time. I strongly feel that during my one year of service with your organization, I have been treated like a non-entity and have been side-lined on many occasions. One clear example in point is the numerous road-shows which were held some months ago. As I recall, I was not even invited to participate in any of these events. Do not think for once that I'm hard-up to participate in these road-shows but if I was considered to be one of the DJ's of the station, why was I side-lined in this respect?

At the same time, many restrictions were placed on me as regards to my programme, which after all only used to go out for just 1 hour a week. As you are aware, I started off with half an hour a weekly and did my best to serve the station. As it is common knowledge, I am a singer by profession and as such there are times when I work right till after midnight. Initially, the time-slot for my programme was each Sunday from 8 - 8.30am in the morning. An appeal was made to the relevant people concerned to have my programme brought forward to a more convenient time-slot such as in the evening, as I did stress the fact that doing a programme in the morning would bring down the standard of my performance as I would not have had sufficient rest the previous night. However, my pleas fell on deaf ears and things carried on like this for more than six months. Subsequently, about 4 months ago I had the fortune of meeting up with your then newly appointed programme consultant, Mr. Duggy Day and through his good offices recommended that my programme be extended by another half an hour and that it be brought forward to an evening slot. I wish here to place on record my sincere thanks to him for his very caring attitude and to you for having made the changes. However, in spite of the fact that I have had my programme extended and given a new time slot which I have greatly appreciated, questions were always raised as regards to my capabilities as a DJ. If I wasn't up to mark as a DJ, why were my services not terminated earlier and on the other hand, if my programme presentation was not up to expectations, why was I not sent for training? I even remember being reprimanded when listeners rang up to congratulate the management for extending the programme and for giving it a more convenient time slot. You even catergorically stated that these "friends" of mine posing as listeners were insincere with their good comments about the management and insinuated that I put them up to it. Consequently, when the same people called up the show, I was accused of presenting a show just to entertain my friends. I wish to state emphatically that these allegations are groundless and no one in their right mind should even entertain these accusations. I ask you, whose fault is it if the public at large is not informed about my show. I put it to you, that the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of your PR department and you as General Manager of the station should take some of the blame yourself. For reasons best known to yourselves, my programme has been given minimal amount of publicity as it probably constitutes just a fraction of the station's output.

It is my contention that an agenda had been set a long time ago for me to be taken off the air, as there are certain people who are envious of the fact that I take the trouble to feature songs that are rarely aired over other radio stations and as such, they try to put obstacles in my way by constantly trying to find fault in my programme presentation. I wish to place on record the fact that I have served the station to the best of my abilities and have gone so far as to do the following:-


Almost 100% of the songs aired on my programmes come from my own collection of CDs and MDs. At this juncture, I wish to thank some of the recording companies for giving me some stuff to play on my programmes.

At the same time you must be aware of the fact that your only MD player is not in proper working order and as such, I was only too glad to bring my own MD player to be used at the station so that my shows could go on smoothly but alas, it has not been appreciated. On the contrary, I was told by your programme director, Gerard Vincent, that I should stop bringing my equipment to the studio as I would be held responsible for any consequences that may arise should the programme get interrupted. Sometimes I even wonder if my programmes have been sabotaged because on numerous occasions, I have been faced with technical problems in which your technicians do not even seem to be able to put right. THR is supposed to have the most up to date and hi tech equipment but we still have things like CD players malfunctioning, numerous breakdowns and even problems with the console. When I had problems with the equipment in the studio, I was asked to log in reports but on doing so, some of your technicians took it to heart and as such became unco/operative. As you are quite aware, I have been working with the station for close to a year now but I have remained stagnent all this while.

I even took it upon myself to have my programme IDs and promos recorded but when it came to booking the recording studios, obstacles were put in my way, such as having to book the studio well in advance and having to state the number of hours required for the booking. As you may or may not know, it was not possible for me to state the number of hours required as there were certain times when your recording equipment would breakdown and to tell you the truth, some of your technical staff are not competent enough. I may not be a technical genius myself but it may interest you to know that I have a special interest in technical know-how.

I wish to inform you that there have been times that I have even sat in your recording studios from 8pm in the evening to 6am in the morning and that was just to record an hour of data. I even took it upon myself to buy 2 blank CDs in which to transfer my programme IDs and promos since it was such a hassle to have them recorded in your studios but for some reason or other your technicians damaged both the discs. I wish to inform you that inspite of the many setbacks that I have faced whilst working for the station, I have even taken the trouble and time to do all my recordings at home and I have never counted the costs. However all these seem to have gone unnoticed and my commitment to the station has even been questioned.

Whilst it would have been good publicity for your radio station to be the first to engage a blind DJ, I feel that I have been discriminated against and some people have even tried to make life difficult for me in your organization. I am quite sure that you are aware of the fact that our government is trying to promote a caring society but all these would be in vain if all Malaysians were to be as insensitive and uncaring as some of you have proven out to be. I can assure you that I have no ulterior motives in writing this letter as I have no intentions of working in such an environment again. It is my fervent hope that the handicapped will not be discriminated against where employment is concerned and that you would have the decency to treat them with respect and be considerate towards them.

As general manager of the station, I find that your PR leaves a lot to be desired. You also give me the impression of someone who is biased and full of prejudice towards the handicapped. From my observations you do not exercise impartiality and that you do not care about the feelings of people whom you think are not important. It is my believe that to earn respect you must also give it in return regardless of that person's status. I remember having a recent meeting with both you and Gerard where you acted like a tyrant and to my mind you had a very domineering attitude towards me. As I recall, you conducted the meeting in a very high handed manner and started off by asking me agressively and "quote" WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT, ALFRED?, "unquote". From your tone of voice, I had gathered that you were not going to be impartial and things turned out the way I expected. During the course of the meeting, you expressed the view that listeners are not important where the station is concerned. You also said that listeners have no business to question about the programmes aired over the station. To my mind, that is a very wrong attitude because as I'm quite sure that there are now numerous radio stations in the country and if I'm not mistaken more still will be coming up. Don't you think that a radio station exist to entertain and serve the public apart from providing information?

Towards the end of the meeting, I pointed out to you the fact that one particular DJ was clowning around during his shows, even to the extent of interrupting the music and you told me that what he did was most entertaining. When I begged to differ, you shouted at me by saying "I'M GOING OFF" in a very harsh tone before storming out of the meeting. Just because I disagreed with you does not give you the justification to shout at me and to end off a meeting so abruptly

It grieves me to write such a letter as this but I strongly feel that I have to set the record straight. I certainly hope that you will take this letter seriously and that handicapped people should be treated more fairly by your organization in the future.

Alfred Ho