The Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation was established by an Act of Parliament – The Broadcasting Ordinance 1976.
It was established to provide a high quality broadcasting service, by radio, of a wide range of programs for the information, education and entertainment of all people living in the sovereign borders of the Independent State of Solomon Islands.
Radio broadcasting was established by US military forces in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate (BSIP) during World War Two. In 1944, the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) developed small, mediumwave stations at Lunga on Guadalcanal and Munda, New Georgia. These were designed to provide information and entertainment to the hundreds of thousands of US service personnel then based in the BSIP. The stations were part of the Mosquito Network, a loose network of similar AFRS stations stretching through the South-West Pacific, from Bougainville in the north to Auckland in the south, and including outlets in Espiritu Santo and Noumea.
As the Pacific war moved northwards, the AFRS stations closed and BSIP listeners returned to tuning to broadcast programmes from Australia or further afield for entertainment and information. In 1946, a rudimentary weekly half hour of news and service bulletins was established by the BSIP Administration. The service was transmitted from Honiara on regular inter-island radio frequencies using Government transmission equipment and soon developed a regular following.
By 1952, the broadcasts were on a much stronger footing and the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service (SIBS), an arm of the Government, was established. In 1976, new legislation converted the SIBS into the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC), a totally independent public service broadcaster charged with providing national radio coverage and a full range of news, educational and entertainment services.
