Deep dives on what SA talk radio is talking about.
Occasional reports synthesising on-air coverage from across the country's English talk stations. Each report is cited chunk-by-chunk to the moment it was said. The summary is public; the full body, charts, and citations are available to subscribers.
The Suspension Bill: Municipalities Bleeding Millions on Paid Leave
South African talk radio spent late May and early June circling a story that cuts to the heart of municipal finance: the millions being paid to employees who sit at home on suspension while disciplinary processes drag on for years. The trigger was a warning from Gauteng's MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Jacob Mamabolo, whose spokesperson Thiong Konke took to Power Breakfast to flag bills ranging from R8.4 million to R23 million per municipality on suspended staff still drawing salaries.
Talk radio braces farmers for a 'Godzilla' El Niño
Across late May and early June 2026, South African talk radio converged on a single weather story: the return of what climatologists were calling a potentially record-breaking El Niño, with implications for agriculture, water security and household budgets from September onwards. 702 and Cape Talk led the coverage, repeatedly bringing climatologists into studio to translate Pacific sea-surface warming into what it means for Highveld maize farmers and Western Cape winter rainfall.
Annuities, Drawdowns and the Retirement Conversation SA Isn't Having
Across a fortnight of talk radio, presenters on 702, Cape Talk and Power FM converged on a single anxiety: South Africans are living longer, costs are climbing, and most households have no real plan for converting a lifetime of savings into a sustainable retirement income. The Money Show's personal finance feature with Galileo Capital's Warren Ingram set the technical agenda — explaining the fork between a life annuity (a guaranteed income for life, underwritten by an insurer) and a living annuity (a flexible drawdown of between 2.5% and 17.5% a year from an invested pot).
Ramaphosa's Phala Phala court bid: talk radio tracks a 'travesty' defence
Across two days in late May, South African talk radio converged on a single legal turn in the Phala Phala saga: President Cyril Ramaphosa's formal application to the Western Cape High Court to review and set aside the Section 89 independent panel report led by former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo. Cape Talk, 702 and Power FM all led bulletins with the filing, framing it as Ramaphosa reviving the legal challenge he first launched — and then abandoned — in 2022, after the Constitutional Court ruled this month that Parliament had acted irrationally when it voted down the panel's findings.
Kruger murders force SANParks security rethink on talk radio
South African talk radio spent the last week of May 2026 trying to make sense of an incident SANParks itself called unprecedented: the discovery of two Mossel Bay tourists, Dinè Murray and Ernst Maree, stabbed to death near the Luvuvhu River in the remote Pafuri section of the Kruger National Park. Stations led almost every bulletin with the line that this was the first murder of visitors in the park's roughly 100-year history, and quickly pivoted from the crime itself to what SANParks, the police and government ministers planned to do about it.
Insurance owned 14% of SA talk radio's ad week, 18–24 May
Insurance was the loudest paid voice on Cape Talk and 702 this week, taking 14% of qualifying ad inventory — second only to a long tail of unclassified spots, and well ahead of auto (7%) and banking (5%). OUTsurance and Naked drove most of the insurance volume, with OUTsurance's Essential Car Insurance pitch and Naked's 'Farnie got naked' campaign in heavy rotation across daytime and drive.
Beyond the Blackouts: Talk Radio Tallies the Real Bill for Small Business
Even though South Africa has now marked a full year without national load shedding, the country's two biggest commercial talk stations spent the past fortnight returning, again and again, to the lingering cost of the electricity crisis for small operators. The framing on Cape Talk and 702 was striking: the lights may be on, but the bill is still being paid — in diesel, in municipal load reduction, in fragile local networks, and now in a fresh threat that Eskom could cut bulk supply to Johannesburg over a R5.2 billion debt.