Communications Minister Senator Helen Coonan reiterated her government’s commitment of an additional $8+ million to the community broadcasting sector in a pre-recorded address to delegates at the 2004 CBAA Conference.
Much of the funding, which will be given over four years, will be targeted to specific projects, such as training, regional stations and transmission, all of which are priorities identified by the sector.
Senator Coonan opened the conference with her pre-recorded speech.
Coonan was followed by another significant session for the community broadcasting sector – a discussion of the recent survey results which showed 7 million people a month listen to community radio.
The CBAA is making on air announcements and posters available to help individual stations promote the results of the survey.
McNair Ingenuity conducted the survey and proprietor Ian McNair addressed the conference about the results, saying he is glad to still be able to do a survey for a sector of the radio industry since his father began radio surveys many years ago.
“It is a significant sample,” McNair told the conference. “It was telephone based, fully national and we have confidence that it was representative of listeners.”
McNair explained there will further opportunities for larger metro stations to commission “booster research” which will give them more detail about listeners to their own station, rather than just aggregated figures.
Deb Welch, from the survey steering committee explained: “We announced overall figures of this survey, but we felt is was important that stations should have the option to commission further research if they wish and to have control of detailed data for their own station.”
I & G’s Lee Hubber advised conference delegates that they should consider commissioning the booster research if (1) they feel confident their audience is large enough and (2) they can use the information to generate revenue.
Hubber says I & G has created “viable state groupings” to assist stations sell sponsorship in regional groups.
Welch and Hubber urged stations to use the information not just to generate revenue, but to also influence station volunteers and leaders in their communities and give them confidence in their community station.