The Community Broadcasting Association of Australia has responded swiftly and forcefully to the commercial radio sector’s urging of the government to stop issuing general purpose community radio licences (see our earlier story about the community radio enquiry).
The CBAA’s General Manager Barry Melville has told radioinfo: “CRA is blatantly promoting industry protectionism whilst misconstruing the purpose of community broadcasting, which is in essence broadcasting ‘for the community, by the community’.”
Melville says, despite commercial industry claims to the contrary, community broadcasting is highly distinguishable from commercial radio and succeeds in attracting audiences largely because it provides an alternative formula: “CRA has opened a Pandora’s box by seeking to limit the capacity of community radio stations to attract audiences.”
Citing the McNair Ingenuity research undertaken in 2004, Melville told radioinfo: “45% of people over 15 listen to community radio in an average month because it is diverse and locally relevant but still capable of broad appeal.”
The Broadcasting Services Act says community broadcasting services are provided for community purposes, are not operated for profit and are made available free to the general public. Not-for-profit groups identify the community purpose they wish to serve, either special purpose (ethnic, Indigenous, youth etc) or geographic community of interest and apply to the regulator (ACMA) for a licence on the basis identified.
“To advocate that community licences should from now on only be issued to special interest groups and not for local geographic communities is missing the point of community broadcasting entirely,” says Melville.
“Our stations are not narrowcasters, and with only 6% of an average station’s revenue coming from government grants the largest source of support is from the sponsorship revenue provided by local businesses who support stations in getting their messages across to local audiences.”
Community radio is the sole source of local content in many rural and regional communities according to results from the most recent national survey of the community radio sector quoted by Melville (CBOnline 2003-04 Data Collection). That survey shows that 38% of stations in rural areas were either the only radio service in their local area or the only source of local content. In addition, the 16 % of stations that operate with limited area sub-metropolitan licences are often the only radio services providing local news and information to the suburbs they broadcast to.
Melville thinks there is a wider agenda behind the CRA submission and has told radioinfo: “If we are looking for the underlying reason why the commercial radio sector is calling for such outrageous and unfair constraint upon the community radio sector, it is because they feel threatened by their own diminishing relevance. The not-for-profit sector is providing what listeners increasingly want, local relevant information and entertainment – not networked services with content syndicated out of the capital cities.”
Many community stations with a broad geographically-defined community of interest (generalist licences) provide diverse program grids jumping from a jazz show one hour, to electronic music the next, to current affairs the next followed by ethnic programming, etc. While this makes it hard for them to rate in the mainstream traditional ratings methodology, it does provide a way of satisfying many diverse groups which want to broadcast, but could not afford to keep their own station running 24 hours every day.
Needless to say, the CBAA has indicated that it will stridently refute CRA’s submission to the current House of Representatives Community Broadcasting Inquiry.