National Radio News Manager, James Montgomery, has welcomed the release of the community radio survey figures, which included a significant study of the sector’s national news service.

He has told radioinfo: “We reach one million listeners a week and cume two million over four weeks… second only to ABC Radio News in reach.”

National Radio News began as a teaching tool for Charles Sturt University’s School of Communication, but the survey has “speeded up our move to our next phase,” says Montgomery, which is likely to move NRN to introduce sponsorship announcements around bulletins.

“If you want to use community broadcast stations as an advertising vehicle then we are the logical choice… we are used as the news service by the majority of community stations, and our subscribers are truly representative of the total spectrum.

Up until now, NRN has chosen not to take advertising, but after the survey and an impending proposal to the CBAA’s National Conference in November, it is expected that the news service will carry sponsorship, to the benefit of member stations.

“We are the widest carried program distributed via ComRadSat and, in 80% of the cases, we are locally sponsored,” says Montgomery.

“We already rewrite each hourly bulletin totally; something a commercial service simply can’t do – our quality equals the best of our peers and I believe we are about to announce an even better deal for our subscribers at CBAA.