NAZ AKMAN – Implemented by the Association of Journalists and funded by the European Union (EU) “Media for Democracy/Democracy for Media Programme” continues to host its events at the Press House in Ankara. The last guests of October, Halil Güven and Önder Çağlar, lecturers from Ankara University Communication Faculty, gave information about the establishment of “Radyo İLEF- Faculty Radio” and how the radio station operated.
According to Güven and Çağlar, the foundations of the radio were laid in 1982 and began to air as Radyo İLEF on channel 91.0. Being a university radio broadcasting from Ankara, Radyo İLEF has reached and audience of 200 million people from all over the world despite being shut down from time to time due legal reasons. Ankara University Faculty of Communication faculty members Güven and Çağlar took part in the establishment of the radio.

M4D Program Coordinator Yusuf Kanlı said “Most of us listen to Radyo İLEF first thing in the morning or while we’re driving to work, it’s a great pleasure to host its founders here today. It’s especially an honour as the Association of Journalists to have contributed, albeit a small contribution, to the founding of such an esteemed radio station. This project [sic] of the Association has been realized thanks to EU funding, we’re aiming to bring those who provide training in communication and young journalists working in the media field together, to increase solidarity.”

In her opening speech, M4D Deputy Director Seva Ülman gave biographical information about the guests and shared information about upcoming events in the Press House in November. Erten said “Today we are hosting two individuals that I’m sure all of you know. I would like to welcome Halil Güven and Önder Çağlar of Radyo İLEF. Today, they are going to talk about the preliminary process of establishing a university radio, how to select music and so on. Born in Samsun, Güven completed his primary and secondary education in four different cities. Then in 1982, he graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences, Press Academy. After graduating, he worked in an advertising agency. Since 1994, as you all know, he has been lecturing on radio management, introduction to broadcasting, speech techniques in radio and television, and production planning. Çağlar was born in Malatya, Darende; he graduated from the Press Academy in 1987. Following his graduation, he started to work for TRT where he was involved in music and entertainment shows, documentaries and news broadcasts. Çağlar has been working as a lecturer at the Faculty of Communication since 1992. He has been the coordinator of the university radio since 2009 ”.
How was Radyo İLEF established?
Güven, a lecturer in charge of Radio İLEF, said, “staying on after graduating in 1982 enabled me to establish the radio. In other words, the foundations of Ankara University Radio 'Radyo İLEF”  were laid on May 8. On November 22, 1994, on the 30^th anniversary of the Communication Faculty, we started a trial broadcast under the name “Radyo Radyo” and aired on 97.5 FM. Broadcasting five hours a day with a 100 Watt transmitter, Radyo Radyo responded to the training needs of the Faculty of Communication, but was interrupted by legal and technical difficulties. Radyo Radyo's adventure continued in January 1998 by airing on 105.8 FM; the station was able to air 24 hours a day, broadcasting the news 3 times a day and hosting music programmes. We broadcasted a lot of foreign music so we quickly became popular with university students. Of course, no one can run a radio by themselves. It takes a team to do it.” 

Güven, “Radio is the communication tool of the future”
Stating that the radio is one of the communication tools of the future, Güven said, “Radyo Radyo started broadcasting again on 8 May 2005 under the name of Radyo İLEF on 91.0 FM. It continues to air as the only university radio that has been given its own channel by RTÜK. There has been a 23 percent increase in radio listeners; the radio is like a music box you can play song after song but since you don’t know what’s coming up next you can’t search for what you don’t know. The radio is great in this aspect, it brings everything to you. I think radio is the communication tool of the future. Broadcasting classical music on the radio is murder in my opinion. You can do this for educational purposes or to popularize classical music, but you need to do it on a special system not on the radio. You lose too much quality the radio; when we air on the radio we divide content according to quality, we try to teach our students about this. I'm a broadcaster. We can't play all the music we want because it doesn't hold the correct number of beats or rhythms, so thousands of tracks in my archive were never played on the radio because it wasn't suitable. On the other hand, universities are like closed boxes for people on the outside. In this sense, the radios act as a window opening from universities to the world.
“Radyo İLEF is no longer only our broadcast, it’s now the broadcast of millions of people.”
Çağlar also talked about his experiences in establishing Radyo İLEF which started its closed-radio circuit broadcast in 1982 “After graduating we wanted to do a TV broadcast. We made the first closed-circuit television broadcast at our university, we produced almost everything, even news programs, by ourselves there. Bülent Çaplı, Can Dündar, Bülent Özkam, Hakan Tuncer and I worked day and night. We broadcasted in the faculty three days a week for three months. In 1996, Halil Hoca convinced me to come back to the radio. At that time, we worked day and night, sometimes working until 11 o’clock at night; we would give election results before everyone else. From time to time we were shut down but we were adamant about broadcasting. Our radio currently airs music in 37 different languages.”
Çağlar also talked about how Radyo İLEF started as a local radio but as technology developed it began to air online and quickly became global “With the developments in technology we began to broadcast online, people from 120 different countries listen to us. We don't know the exact number of our listeners, but we receive emails from all over the world. When people started listening to us from around the world, we soon began to learn how to broadcast globally. When we started broadcasting globally, we started to air events and advertisements in eight different languages. According to our estimations based on those who click our radio over the internet, we think that Radio İLEF has nearly 200 million listeners. Radyo İLEF ranks in the top three most listened cross-platform radios in the world. This is why the station has become a brand. Because Radyo İLEF is no longer only our broadcast, it’s now the broadcast of millions of people. Therefore, if we make even the slightest of changes, we immediately start to receive e-mails and phone calls.”
Aziz Ibrahim Onder, a lecturer at the Faculty of Communication at Ankara University, also contributed to the event and said “We asked ourselves, what kind of broadcast could we do? We thought about it quite a bit. We thought it could be a music-based broadcast that four lecturers could run. We started to choose from music genres we liked. This is how Radyo İLEF’s taste in music began to cultivate. At one point we had spoken word shows, but after receiving negative feedback from our listeners we decided to stop them. So, apart from being a university radio station, we turned into a music radio station. We noticed that people across Ankara would listen to our station, in shops, art galleries, hospitals etc. People even listen to us in operating rooms.”