Lush 99.5FM is ‘a shining beacon’ in the local music scene: Inch Chua

Radio station Lush 99.5FM is a “shining beacon” in the local music scene and it would be “painful to see it go”, said Singaporean singer-songwriter Inch Chua on Tuesday (18 July).

Speaking to Yahoo Lifestyle Singapore a day after Lush announced that it would disappear from the airwaves on 31 August, 11.59PM, Chua said that the station has always promoted and supported local artistes.

Echoing Chua’s sentiment, Michaela Therese, a Singaporean artiste based in London, said, “Lush will always be the first true media champion of local arts for my generation of musicians DJs and producers. The platform and its good people supported us from its inception to its end.”

Since it began transmitting on 31 December 2004, Lush has been widely praised for its efforts to promote local talent through initiatives like the Artist of the Month and all-day local programming on National Day.

Vanessa Fernandez, Lush’s Assistant Programming Director, said in a statement that the station’s crew members are busy planning their last hurrah for listeners.

“Right now, the Lush team are focused on delivering a final burst of the best local art, music and lifestyle content. We hope that the wonderful support we’ve received from Lush listeners continues for the upcoming Singapore Sounds initiative across our other platforms on Mediacorp,” said Fernandez.

Singapore Sounds is a Mediacorp programme that aims to promote local artistes through the media company’s radio, TV and digital channels. At its peak, Lush reached out to 90,000 listeners a week in 2010 and this has dwindled to 50,000 currently.

The station almost had its license revoked by the Media Development Authority in 2015 because of low listenership. It managed to stay on air due in part to a successful campaign called #Ilistentolush, with Lush’s loyal followers using the hashtag to express support for the station on social media. The campaign reached out to over 1 million people.

“Here’s to an incredible fight! You played local music and believed in us when no one else did,” said Therese.

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