Opinion from Brad Smart

What is it with some community stations these days?

I think many of the people behind them have delusions of grandeur.

There are stations out there trying to spread their reach and influence across far more territory than they were ever intended to.

Some even ride roughshod over their contemporaries, with smaller community stations being destroyed as bigger ones penetrate their once-exclusive territories.

I’ve always believed that community stations were given licences to cover specific geographic areas, where that local region wasn’t adequately served by existing commercial stations. Wasn’t the whole idea that community radio would provide niche programs to fill that gap?

If that was the original concept, it doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

It now looks like many community stations not only want to sound and market themselves as direct competition to commercial broadcasters, but they also want to create a footprint to rival the commercials, particularly across regional areas.

I don’t think this ‘competition’ concept ever entered the minds of politicians, when they first cast their vote to allow for community licences.

Politicians would have seen their vote as a sincere gesture to give a voice to local people, not to provide an additional pseudo-commercial station in the same market.

You’ve got to admit that operators in the community radio space have been very smart over the past 30 years.

They’ve organised themselves with peak bodies, like the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA) and Community Broadcasting Fund, to create a legitimate ‘industry,’ where I’m sure ‘an industry’ was never intended to exist when parliament first agreed to grant community licences.

These groups now have become so influential that they’re regularly lobbying government ministers in the halls of Canberra.

Most commercial broadcasters don’t really object to the concept of community broadcasting, as long as it operates as it was originally intended.

Unfortunately, some modern-day community licensees don’t seem satisfied with their lot in life and want to keep expanding their operations.

Cynics might even call it ‘empire-building.’

This sometimes happens when former commercial radio people embed themselves into lethargic community radio committees, bring commercial concepts to the table and hijack the agenda.

It’s not hard to find many examples, where community stations have started to embrace the concept of ‘more.’

The Black Star Network in Far North Queensland is one.

It’s part of QRAM, the Queensland Regional Aboriginal Media group.

This network was originally established to provide information, entertainment and a sense of belonging to remote indigenous communities on Cape York.

A lot of the money to support this service comes from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Supporting remote communities is a noble sentiment… there’s no doubt about that. However, Black Star began to expand its network into more populated areas shortly after people with commercial radio backgrounds joined them

Black Star now has outlets in the Cairns, Atherton and Cooktown listening areas, where they compete with commercial stations for a share of the available revenue in that region.

The group has been quite open that they want to continue expanding as far south as Townsville.

Cairns, Atherton and Cooktown are all well served by the ABC and commercial stations owned by SCA, NQ Radio and Grants.

Black Star’s breakfast show in Cairns and Atherton is almost indiscernible in its music and talk content from 4AM Mareeba, the local commercial AM station on the Atherton Tableland.

During the middle of the day, you’d have trouble picking the difference in their music from SCA’s HIT FM.

If Black Star is trying to sound like a fully commercial operation and is vying for a share of the larger town audiences, you’d have to ask yourself ‘are the remote communities on Cape York now missing out on services that the network was originally licensed to provide?’

Complementing its commercial-sounding programs, Black Star actively seeks sponsorship dollars from local businesspeople in its larger markets.

All the while, its operations are being underwritten by federal government grants. It’s a ‘can’t lose’ situation for them.

Contrast this with the local commercial stations that sink or swim based solely on their appeal to advertisers.

But, rapid expansion isn’t just the purview of indigenous stations.

Rock FM in Moranbah is a community station originally licensed for the mining town, and it’s not just a clever name, it plays – rock music.

The station’s footprint has recently started to grow from its Moranbah region coverage.

Throughout the Central Highlands, many mining companies have been granted self-help licences to reinforce radio signals down in their pits.

Originally, these licences carried the area’s commercial stations, most notably, 4HI from Emerald. However, in recent times, mines have been under pressure from their employees to provide them with different types of programming, so several have gained approval to change the input signal of their repeaters to Rock FM.

For some of those mines, like Lake Vermont, the Rock FM  signal is being relayed ‘out-of-area.’ In other words, even though these changes have been approved by ACMA, they’re operating well beyond the boundary of the station’s original service area. Rock FM has previously been relayed by the Saraji mines in Dysart, over 70 kilometres from Moranbah.

It used to be that self-help licences carried ABC, SBS or commercial stations licenced to the service area, or if the self-help was an out-of-area, they’d use the most relevant commercial service to the region being covered. That concept now appears to be changing, with ACMA allowing community stations to vastly expand their presence, and in doing so, the regulator is boosting these stations’ appeal to sponsors.

I doubt this was ever the intention of parliament, but it does help us understand why commercial broadcasters’ licence fees have had to be reduced, as the constant addition of new players keeps watering down the viability of the radio marketplace.

However, the mines are not the most perplexing issue concerning Rock-FM’s expansion.

The town of Clermont is serviced by ABC radio services, two commercial radio repeaters and its own community station, licensed to the local council.

Despite this, Rock FM has been approved to set up in the town in competition to the local community and commercial stations, thanks to a self-help licence granted to a private company. ACMA’s decision-making process becomes difficult to comprehend, as Clermont is over 100 kilometres from Moranbah and well outside the station’s designated service area.

Over in the South Burnett, just north of the Darling Downs, there’s a community broadcaster, called CROW FM.

This station has long been operated by people with commercial radio backgrounds, and it’s very aggressive in the sales area.

Its studios are in the tiny town of Wondai, but CROW clearly wants to compete for the big bucks in the business centre of the area, Kingaroy, where two commercial stations, 4SB and HIT FM have existed for decades.

Recently, ACMA granted CROW an FM repeater licence on a hill overlooking the centre of Kingaroy.

So, is there now a difference in the way AMCA treats community stations over commercials? Well, it seems so.

When one of the Kingaroy commercial stations asked ACMA for a similar licence, it was told by the regulator it could take up to four years for them to be granted any repeater licence they applied for within their coverage area.

CROW FM is another commercial-sounding community station, which is in direct competition with the existing commercial operators for revenue. It now has a far higher quality signal in Kingaroy than the heritage AM station, 4SB, whose signal suffers badly from electrical interference, thanks to the town’s new factories and workshops.

Further south at Dalby, in the Toowoomba LAP, the local community station, 4DDD, is about to become a serious player on the Darling Downs with the opening of four new repeaters in Meandarra, Moonie, Tara and Wandoan, which lies some 170 kilometres away.

Slipping across the border to northern New South Wales, and they’re playing similar games in New England.

Tamworth has two commercial radio stations, 2TM and 92.9FM and a community station 88.9, which specialises in country music.

The city is a thriving rural centre.

You’d think it would certainly have enough businesses to keep this community station flush with sponsorship for years to come. But, as with a growing number of its contemporaries in community radio – it wanted more!

Earlier this year, ACMA granted the station permission to extend its coverage across the Liverpool Plains on 96.3.

Now, you might say ‘Well, why shouldn’t community stations extend their coverage far and wide, and go where the money is?’

I think one of the major reasons is this.

Some community stations do support a number of paid employees, that’s true, but most stations rely heavily on volunteers.

Commercial stations, on the other hand, employ the vast majority of people in the radio industry. They have weekly pay packets to fill and a range of expenses that community stations never have to worry about.

When community stations start sucking money out of regional markets, beyond what would be considered ‘a donation’ to a volunteer organisation, then it endangers the employment of people working fulltime in the professional industry.

That’s part of the reason we don’t have volunteer architects or lawyers or accountants. They have lobbied successive federal and state governments to ensure their industries are protected from enthusiastic amateurs.

But, there’s no such protection for people looking to make radio their lifelong career.

I know that on social media there are many people who believe radio should be a free-for-all. In some of their opinions, all licences should be abolished.

If they were to get their way, and you wanted a radio career, you’d probably have to be prepared to pump gas for a living and do your radio shift as a volunteer gig.

The more this industry carves the apple, the less advertising there is to support fulltime employees in radio, and I’ve gotta say, from experience, the situation is getting pretty dire in some of the smaller markets already.

When an expanding community station goes into another community station’s territory, particularly in small towns, they also endanger the viability of the smaller station, which was given its licence to directly serve the people of that area.

Community radio certainly has its place in the broadcasting landscape, and I’m not suggesting anything done by stations is illegal. However, I think ACMA is at fault here by letting some community stations grow almost unchecked, emboldening them with a sense of entitlement that they can grow no matter the consequences to others.

The regulator has a responsibility to ensure the viability of our entire industry and that it remains an orderly system. Rubber-stamping applications to sanction big community stations to get even bigger is an irresponsible move at the expense of commercial broadcasters.

It is ACMA who should be ensuring that all the elements of the broadcasting jigsaw stay in balance.

One thing I’m convinced of is that this industry doesn’t need community super-stations.

About the Author

Brad Smart previously owned and operated the Smart Radio Network through regional Queensland.

He sold his stations to the then Macquarie Radio Network.

He has been a journalist, broadcaster and film producer for over 30 years.

Brad is available as a freelance writer, voiceover talent and consultant.

Brad’s articles and podcasts are also available through his website www.bradsmart.com.au 

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