The Australian Communications and Media Authority has been busy investigating more complaints about community stations and has found against three of them.

Lambing Flats Community Broadcasting Inc, operators of TWOYYY FM 92.3 Young, breached a condition of its licence by exceeding the hourly sponsorship limit of five minutes on six occasions.

Ballarat Community FM Radio Co-operative Limited, the licensee of Ballarat community broadcasting service 99.9 Voice FM, breached a condition of its licence by broadcasting advertisements. Under the rules a sponsorship announcement on community radio that promotes the sponsor’s business must include an appropriate acknowledgement of financial support (a ‘tag’), otherwise it will be considered an advertisement.

While breaching the rules on commercialism is a common complaint, ACMA found a relatively rare breach with 3RIM Melton. According to ACMA it breached a condition of its licence by failing to encourage members of the community it serves to participate in the operations of the service and in the selection and provision of programs.

3RIM Inc holds a community broadcasting licence to provide a radio service in the local government area of Melton, located west of Melbourne.

ACMA’s investigation found that while 3RIM did have procedures in place to encourage members of the community to become members and to raise the profile of the service, it did not have appropriate strategies to encourage community participation.

In its investigation report, ACMA did note that 3RIM has already made improvements, including posting information on its website and formalised links with local government initiatives.

ACMA has asked 3RIM to provide a report in August 2008 on the measures it has taken since the investigation was finalised to meet its licence obligations.

ACMA’s investigation followed complaints received on 2 July 2007 and 3 August 2007 that 3RIM was not encouraging community participation in the operations and programming of the service. One of the complainants also alleged that the service was failing to represent its community interest in line with its licence conditions. However, ACMA’s investigation found that the licensee was meeting the requirements of this licence condition.