Darwin’s Territory FM is not your average Community Radio station. For a start, according to station manager Peter Perrin, it commands a 23 per cent share of that city’s audience. While that sort of success is coveted by the Commercial sector and welcomed by the ABC, it doesn’t sit so easily with some of Territory FM’s Community peers. Nor, it seems, does Perrin’s recent decision to broadcast an hour of Alan Jones each weekday. It prompted 2SER FM, Sydney’s Jennifer Lush to call Perrin for an interview in which she accused the Darwin station of being a “commercial wolf in community clothing.” Perrin countered by accusing some community stations of having a “kum ba yah attitude to broadcasting – if it doesn’t appeal to anybody, it’s a good product to put on,” he said.
According to Perrin, the ACMA has no issue with him running syndicated programming supplied by a commercial source provided he doesn’t run commercials. But while Territory FM may not be breaking the letter of it’s licence conditions, Lush feels that it is running contrary to the spirit of it and “is against everything that community radio stands for.”
Listen to the interview and tell us who you think wins the argument. Or give us your own.
Click here to listen
Dear Editor,
Normally I wouldn't respond to such rubbish but this is beyond the pale and simply unfair to our station staff and volunteers. Please note the following:
Firstly Territory FM is not the only community station to broadcast the Alan Jones highlight hour or simulcast television news.
1. Out of 168 hours a week, all are locally produced except 17.5 hours. We feel this is a very good achievement for a Community license in Darwin.
2. The statement Lush makes that the station broadcasts syndicated program between 1100-1600 is simply incorrect. Jones is only on between 1100-1200. Joe Miller host’s 1200-1600 locally followed at 1600 by Matt Bern also locally.
3. 1100-1200 Alan Jones, 1800-1830 TV News Simulcast, 1830-2030 Alice Cooper are hardly radio prime time contrary to Lush’s assertion.
4. An Advisory Board of community representatives oversees the station and it's programs. These good people are representatives from ethic, defence, commerce, service, indigenous and volunteer organisations.
5. That after a very robust license renewal period and the station’s monitored compliance over a twelve-month period the Australian Communications and Media Authority renewed 8TFM’s license for five years. Why would we jeopardise this?
The absolute stupidity of her argument that community radio should not be permitted to access programs of broad appeal just because commercial radio does elsewhere, when these programs are not being broadcast in the market by anyone else, and when said broadcast meets all ACMA rules is ludicrous because in essence they are providing diversity in programming.
If one extrapolated the “Lush proposition” community radio should then, not play any music commercial radio does either. I’m sure the artists and audience would love that.
Peter Perrin
General Manager
Territory FM
[Editor's note: this post has been slightly edited from the original, which was a little 'stronger' than what is shown here]
When running the continus call team from 2GB do they not have that was thanks to (insert compony here)? I have always thought that community stations needed to tell the listener that this announcement is paid for with a tag. Is there an exemption with syndercated commercial programming?
Where did they get the figures, would love to see them, a 21 share is a big call and would love proof
The station has a full payed day time lineup (which is fine as the station needs a professional format to gain sponsors etc) but why can't they open it up on weeknights and weekends to the Darwin public (not just volunteer weekend and mid dawn voictracking) the other community stations in Darwin are for indigenous people and the other is a religious station. That's not covering the whole Darwin community. That's where 104.1 should as an 'everybodies community station'