A month ago Brad Smart shared his thoughts to Radioinfo around the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) findings on the low powered open narrowcaster (LPON) Magic 87.6, broadcasting to Mudgee NSW and surrounds. He questioned the future of LPON stations in general and raised the industry rumour that they could be phased out entirely as early as the mid-2030s.
Brad was disappointed that ACMA appears to be deliberately targeting small independent operators as low hanging fruit, knowing they don’t have adequate resources to fight back against the government. In response to the ACMA findings, Magic 87.6 has now changed its name and format to Red Dirt Radio.
Philip Smith is a Technical Officer for an electronics company based in Perth, WA, who contemplates compliance matters on a daily basis and is also a narrowcaster, primarily within the Christian sector.
He has contributed his views on the issue:
“From my own experience over the past 20 years or so, I have come the learn that ACMA is not particularly enamored of LPONs. In some ways, running the system is more trouble to ACMA than they’re worth, bureaucratically speaking.
It is natural for a small narrowcasting network to want to optimise their station’s audience capture potential. They want to be viable, and there is no crime in wanting that. So narrowcasters, tend to try to emulate broadcast formats and strategies as much as they can (get away with). ACMA’s challenge to wannabe narrowcasters is to think differently, and try something else.
Having said that, I think there is a bit of favouritism around the traps. Brad has highlighted this in his piece, without naming names.
Yes, ACMA actually favour networks in LPONS, and the larger the network, in terms of number of stations under a common banner, the more facilitation you might get from ACMA. The larger established narrowcasting networks – think Christian stations and Racing Radio and Kix FM (yeah and I’ve sold licences to all of these guys over the years), are actually quite well-healed these days, with LOW multi-million dollar budgets, and many people on staff at station HQ. That ACMA listens to the bigger players in the industry is not surprising, simply because they project a bigger voice.
Nevertheless, everybody in the sector is supposed to abide by the same rules, and ACMA should monitor the rules in an evenhanded way. The thing is, though, sometimes a rival in radio can lodge a complaint against the smaller operator – something they’d perhaps think twice about doing against a larger network – and ACMA’s compliance apparatus has to go into gear. What Magic 87.6 FM actually has now is a defacto category of service opinion from ACMA – one which they didn’t have to pay for! It’s just that the opinion is not favourable toward what they have been doing on their network up to this point, even though, as Brad points out, from a community impact perspective, Magic 87.6 have been running a good gig.
So, what is the solution?
Well, in the short term, Magic has to find a way of being appealing to an audience while not tripping outside the narrowcast definitions of operating a service of ‘limited appeal’. I find myself saying this often – a looped-service can be more effective than most ex-broadcasters envisage, if you are truly creative in how you build the ‘rotation’ of content, and renew it with each weekly update. But with computer-based automation software abounding these days, looped services seem to be archaic and ‘unclever.’ Yet, a lot of what I hear on DAB+ radio in Perth is not too far removed looped service. Honestly, I could set my watch by the predictability of song rotations on a few of the supposedly ‘broadcast’ stations on DAB+ to which we sometimes tune in our office.
Another thing that ACMA ought to do, in the interests of fair competition, is to formulate a determination which limits the access to the networking of LPONS in dense urban areas. The bigger networks often have a concentration of ownership (and therefore ‘power’) in the capitals and larger regional centres like the ACT. A mechanism needs to be found and implemented to limit networking potential across a defined urban space. Such a provision would likely be in accordance with the Broadcasting Act that created LPONS in the first place.
It will open the field up to a few new players, and I think that is important, if the sector has a future beyond this and the next decade.”
Related article:
Low Powered Open Narrowcast auction in Gawler sets new record price
... in my dealings with the ACMA, when it comes to the "big boys" in narrowcast, ie CRA members, their favourite phrase is "regulatory forbearance" which translates as "turn a blind eye", smaller outfits are not so fortunate ...
I agree with both Brad Smart's comments in his earlier article. I also agree with Phil's comments here. The reality is when operating a Narrowcasting Service you are not playing in the big end of town. You need to make choices with zero budget in pocket to impliment the service. There is no on going protection afforded to you. ACMA even says "made available on a buyer beware basis" in reference to LPON's (not so much HPON's). The "buyer beware" means if they need the spectrum back there is no obligation to relocate you (a Community or Commercial license they would have to).
ACMA doesn't get off lightly here either... It's rediculasly hard to make sense of their narrowcasting guidelines and the price they ask for an opinion is RIDICULOUS! Then it's only valid for 5 years! Maybe if ACMA updated it's thinking every 5 years too, we could all save some trouble. Then you look at the examples they give (in their guidelines) and find out they are so far out of date - it's a royal laugh! If you are any sort of person trying to do the right thing, you then look into the investigations and see who is cleared for what. That's an interesting read.
As for Magic itself... I agree with Phil... He now has a defacto opinion on ACMA's dime. Some of the comments from Andrew himself (in talks we had) make it very clear AMCA is not "using the same, very worn in" brush when making their points. It was very clear to me ACMA was sending "the office newbie" or someone that has no idea what the real "essence of the regulations" were. This problem could all go away if ACMA wanted to... Just pass rules that say... right, it's 1 Watt for an LPON... we know audience attitudes aren't what they were in the 90's (when most of this was drawn up). From here on in.... we are policing over power like a hawk - it's 1W and it's format free (do whatever). So simple it hurts!
I think Peter Tate (of Station X fame) is onto something. Perhaps ACMA should just address the technical aspects of the LPON licenses and not be so bureaucratically tight-arsed about on-air formats and content. They should arguably spend more of their limited resources policing the LPON transmitter power outputs and field strength readings, the proper use of the allocated frequency, the site coordinates approved for a transmitter location, the recording of station logs, and take steps to counter the continuing widespread phenomenon of strategic licence hoarding and ‘clustering’, particularly by the larger networks.
Wait a second. That’s what they’ve been doing with this recently completed undertaking to audit a random sampling of LPONs across Australia. You can learn about what they’ve uncovered in the published compliance report, which is based on their second and larger nationwide audit from 2023-2024 – there was a smaller ‘dry run’ LPON audit conducted in Victoria in 2022 during COVID – on the ACMA website. {I'll comment about the ramifications of this report in more detail at a later time.} https://www.acma.gov.au/publications/2024-09/report/compliance-priority-2023-24-report-lpon-audit
You could characterize the way the LPON sector is governed in terms of an analogy comparing ‘hardware and software’. The hardware is the technical parameters of the LPON system – the LPON planning model and the systematic allocation of licenced frequencies for a given location. The software refers to the content carried on the airwaves – the narrowcasting formats which are supposed to conform to the criteria of having ‘limited appeal’.
And to be fair, ACMA investigates both the hardware and software fronts, depending on what type of complaint they receive about a station. Myall Coast Radio 87.8 FM (MCR) had a category of service complaint lodged against them to ACMA in April 2021. ACMA published their “Investigation report — provision of programming by Myall Coast Radio FM 87.8 (Opinion BI601)” in April 2022. https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2022-04/acma-finds-myall-coast-radio-station-breached-licence-conditions
This complaint was perhaps similar to the one lodged against Magic 87.6 FM (now rebranded as Red Dirt Radio). ACMA found that licensee MCR had breached its licence conditions in the ‘software characteristics’, and had in effect been providing an on-air mix of music and talk that was more akin to a Community Broadcast station, which aimed to meet the listening tastes of people aged over 55.
In fact, there exists an old news report which says that leaders of Myall Coast Radio FM 87.8 even visited a community station in Tuncurry, to get pointers from them regarding programming and station operation. So, you can see what they were trying to do, and all with good intentions for their target audience. https://www.newsofthearea.com.au/myall-coast-radio-87-8fm-startup-learns-from-great-lakes-fm101-5-to-build-community-radio-expertise
As I said before, you can’t emulate a broadcast format on a narrowcast licence. To make a tweak in the standard broadcasting approach is not going to cut it with ACMA when they are investigating based on the legislated narrowcasting criteria. And for a category of service investigation, it doesn’t matter to ACMA if the licensee is operating within the technical conditions of their licence. An LPON licence is not an alternative pathway to a community radio station!
MCR accepted ACMA’s verdict against them, shut down their terrestrial one-watt radio operation based in Tea Gardens / Hawk’s Nest in NSW - a small sleepy seaside haven for the over 55s – and sold their licence to one of the larger networks. MCR decided to continue to operate as an online streaming station – a tricky proposition given that the main audience are of a generation that might not adapt easily to radio via the internet.
In conclusion, to reprise what Peter Tate said in his comment, MCR 87.8 and Magic 87.6 probably could’ve known better if they’d just read a few of ACMA’s published opinions (tedious but essential reading) about the various narrowcasting formats of which they have DISAPPROVED. And so, another small narrowcaster bit the dust.
P.S. To those LPON network owners who have surplus licences under their client ID, which they are not using and perhaps are never going to put on air, drop me a line as I may soon have a way of helping you off-load that 87.6 or 87.8 that you don’t want (to keep hoarding). :)