Omphemetse Matabane: Alex FM
OMPHEMETSE GRADUATED
INTO A SPORTS PRESENTER
Shortly after her internship with Alex FM,
Omphemetse is now one of the female sports presenters.
Written by: Machaba Matsapola
W
30
hen Omphemetse Matabane
first spoke to Frequency
Magazine back in 2016, she
was fresh out of college and trying to
find her feet in the radio world as an
intern at Alex FM. Two years later, she
seems to be settling in well at the leg-
endary community radio station. Since
2016, she has hosted a teenage show,
worked behind the scenes as a content
producer and is now a sports
presenter on the station’s weekday
breakfast show. sports presenter has become more of
a lifestyle that she is always engaged in
sports conversations and is a big
Orlando Pirates and Barcelona sup-
porter. During the 2018 soccer World
Cup, Omphemetse says she was root-
ing for Croatia because she loves the
underdogs. When it comes to other
sports people, she mentions wheel-
chair tennis player Kgothatso Mont-
jane, Caster Semenya, Wayde van
Niekerk, Lionel Messi and Cristiano
Ronaldo as some of her favourites.
Omphemetse says she was encour-
aged by a senior colleague to take on
the challenge of being one of the few
female sports voices on the airwaves.
“At first I didn’t’ have much knowledge
on sports as a whole besides soccer,”
she admits. Her determination paid
off and she started to take interest in
other kinds of sports including rugby,
tennis, cricket and athletics. Growing
up, Omphemetse used to watch boxing
on TV with her mom and was one of
the cheerleaders at sports events in
high school. She also looks up to other sports voic-
es on radio and TV like the late Cebo
Manyaapelo, Oshebeng Koonyaditse,
Stella Sebalo and Carol Tshabalala.
Omphemetse says she wants to take
her radio career to bigger platforms
and is open to be involved in sports
and social issues. Some of the things
in her wish list is to see women soccer
become as prominent as their male
counterparts and more sports
facilities in black communities like her
hometown Brits in the North
West province.
She has now become the trusted voice
that delivers factual sports information
on Alex FM mornings. Speaking about
how she manages to gather daily con-
tent, she says: “We have a team and
we always make sure that we get the
right content including sports news
from the community.” Her job as a Catch Omphemetse Matabane
dishing out sports news on Alex FM’s
breakfast show every weekday from
06h00-09h00 am. 89.1 FM is
the frequency.
SPORTS MAGAZINE
Stay tuned.