The exasperated words of 2 Hot FM Cobar’s voluntary manager Werner Muhlethaler tell of the frustration he feels with ACMA for its decision this week to revoke the station’s permanent licence: “Those people hardly know where Cobar is, but they make a decision at the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney saying we don’t deserve to hear community radio in this town. After 10 years I’m going up the wall… I tried everything honest to god, I fought as much as I could, but it’s a pity what they’ve done. After 10 years why should I give a shit now. Nothing lasts forever…”
Muhlethaler is the former Mayor of the town, and was a regular presenter on 2 Hot FM. The problem is, he was only one of two or three people who were volunteer presenters on air, and that meant the station had to broadcast a lot of programming from the community radio satellite service. The lack of volunteer announcers and the low number of local hours broadcast did not fulfill ACMA’s criteria for licence renewal (see our earlier story reporting ACMA’s decision).
The problem behind the low number of volunteers is not (as in some stations) because a small clique was trying to lock out others from participation, it is simply the lack of available volunteer labour. In his heavy Swiss accent Muhlethaler explains to radioinfo:
“Most people live here for less than 2 years. Mining is booming, there is a booming population here, but the irony is that there are not enough people to get involved in the station. That’s because people come here to work for a few weeks, go flat chat working long shifts for lots of money, then leave, you can’t get them to do something for nothing.
“Aeroplanes bring in people to work in the mines and fly them out again soon after. They’re not interested in community activities. The locals, who live here permanently, work four days on and four days off on long rostered shifts, they can’t commit to anything regular because their shifts may change, so the pool of volunteers is very small. We had a few pensioners or a few others with time a while ago, but their numbers have been dwindling. There’s just not many people available to make a commitment.”
Muhlethaler criticizes ACMA for applying a formula that does not appropriately fit the Cobar situation:
“You still need volunteers for the licence requirement… according to the framework I should have had 80 members and 15-20 volunteer broadcasters for a town of about 4500 people, but that’s just not possible here. I could have got lots of members on the books to satisfy their figures, but those people would not have been able to volunteer to go on air.
“I could have proven that lots of people listen by going down the street and doing a survey, but listenership doesn’t seem to matter as much as volunteer numbers.”
ACMA’s decision was not a surprise, because the renewal process has been going for over a year, but it does not make it any easier for Muhlethaler to accept. radioinfo first reported the station’s push for more volunteers in August last year and members had been working hard for two years to try and recruit more people in preparation for the licence renewal process. They were not successful.
Muhlethaler says he cannot understand why, with so much vacant spectrum in the outback region, there is any urgency in forcing action on the licence:
“The FM band here is not congested, there are only 8 or 9 stations in the area, so who are they worrying. Why not let us stay on air and give people a choice, we were not hurting anyone, we do not own anyone any money, no one else wants to use the spectrum, there are no other groups wanting to broadcast on that frequency. Yet they still take the licence away, it upsets me.
“Like the banks deserting the bush when times got tough. Facilities are always taken away from the bush. Someone from Sydney said we don’t deserve to listen to community radio… it’s an alternative to 2DU and the ABC. Why haven’t we got the right to listen to community radio?”
Ironically, the more successful neighbouring community radio station, 2WEB in Bourke, was denied the possibility of expanding its local programming in 2004 after objections from 2 Hot (and other stations), which feared that it would compromise local content in Cobar (see our earlier story).
Muhlethaler says he has put his own money and time into the station trying to keep it on air so that basic local services could be provided for the town and so that the resource remains in working order for volunteers of the future to give it new life. He has paid the Community Radio Satellite fee for the coming 12 months, so if no one comes forward to do more local programming, he will relay ComRadSat programming to keep the transmitter open until he is told by ACMA to either turn it off, or continue.
“Once I turn it off and close the door the last time that’s the end of it. It will be hard to get it back! For 10 years I’ve worked my guts out for the station, but there’s not much more I can do now.”
Click below to see the station’s licence submission.
Click here to see a biography of Werner Muhlethaler when he was mayor.