2009 in radio

Events

• January 1: Kurdish TV starts broadcasting in Turkey.
• March 9: ABC Kinglake Ranges, a temporary radio service, makes its first broadcast from Kinglake, Victoria, Australia, to areas in the Shire of Murrindindi affected by the Black Saturday bushfires, using a makeshift transmitter on 97.1FM.
• March 24: The Ray D'Arcy Show on commercial radio station Today FM, covers the Brian Cowen nude portraits story. Producer Will Hanafin claims that a friend of the artist e-mailed photographs of a similar painting to him in January. Hanafin is approached by the Garda and warned he could be charged if he refuses to give up the e-mails.
• April 6: Antena Sarajevo is launched in Bosnia, as an urban radio service for Sarajevo.
• May 11: Kerrang! Radio wins Station Of The Year 1,000,000+ at the Sony Awards.
• June: Radio Erena, a Paris-based radio station broadcasting news in the Tigrinya and Arabic languages to Eritrea, is launched by journalist Biniam Simon.
• August 13: Kiss FM is launched, broadcasting to the Colombo, Kandy and Coastal regions
• November 24: Virgin Radio Jordan 93.7 is launched at City Mall in Amman, Jordan.
• December 18: After 27 years, Irish broadcaster Sir Terry Wogan presents his final breakfast show on the UK's BBC Radio 2.

  Debuts

• January 5: De Cock Late Night, talk radio show on the Flemish radio MNM presented by Tom De Cock
• February 13: Club Nation, weekly show hosted by the Croatian/Dutch DJ duo Tezija & Keyra, launched on Splash FM.
• March 13: Inquilaab – The Story of Junoon, one-off documentary broadcast on City FM 89 in Pakistan.
• August 14: The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman, a radio musical written by Sparks and commissioned by Sweden's national broadcasting service, Sveriges Radio, is broadcast for the first time.
• December 14: Jeder Rappen zählt, charity fundraiser on Swiss radio and television
• date unknown: A hely, a programme that experiments with the presentation of events, phenomenon, places and professions from a very insider perspective, is launched on Kossuth Rádió in Hungary.

  Endings

• date unknown: Newsreader Bob Leahy gives up reading the news on New Zealand's Radio Network.

  Deaths

• January 13: Mansour Rahbani, Lebanese composer and radio producer, 83
• February 3: Jorge Serguera, former President of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television, 76
• April 26: Geir Hovig, Norwegian radio presenter, 64
• July 2: Pasquale Borgomeo, director of Radio Vatican, 76
• July 16: D. K. Pattammal, Indian Carnatic musician who began her career on radio, 90
• July 21: Gangubai Hangal, Indian classical singer and All India Radio performer, 96
• October 4: Mercedes Sosa, Argentine singer who began her career on radio, 74
• October 9: Dré Steemans, Belgian television and radio host, 55
• October 31: Tim Bickerstaff, New Zealand broadcaster who pioneered talkback radio, 67
• November 7: Vic Davies, Australian radio presenter, 55
• November 20: Roman Trakhtenberg, Russian actor, television and radio presenter, 41
• December 11: Ciarán Mac Mathúna, Irish radio presenter and music collector, 84