“Traditional print media is in crisis, business models have collapsed and commercial radio players have lost shareholder value.”
Professional stirrer, Crikey founder and recently elected City of Melbourne Councillor Stephen Mayne was one of the keynote speakers at today’s CBAA Conference in Melbourne.
In a speech that championed independent media, the former News Limited journalist and Jeff Kennett media advisor handed out most of his criticism to the Murdoch media empire, saying its outlets distort media news in their own interest and “abuse power.”
“I can’t believe the regulators have allowed the Murdoch family to gain so much control of Australian media,” Mayne told conference delegates.
He urged community broadcasters to “protect the integrity of your independence” and “diversify funding” so that stations are not too heavily influenced by one funding source. He was not against commercial support however, saying “not all corporate sponsorship is evil as long as you separate content from sponsorship.”
Community broadcasters should lobby the government for restoration of funding to important areas such as digital radio and the AMRAP music project, both of which lost funding in the last federal budget. “In the political environment there is strength in numbers and there are plenty of you across the community sector… Stand up and lobby hard.”
Mayne acknowledged the support of broadcasters including ABC774’s Jon Faine, 3CR, 3RRR and others in the early days of Crikey, saying that mentions on those stations helped him build subscribers. When he sold Crikey he had 5000 paying subscribers and 12,000 unpaid subscribers, illustrating his point that people are willing to support independent media. He now has 12,500 twitter followers and says that building a social media following all depends on having good content, just like good radio.
He sees independent media and open information sharing through new media tools as antidotes to what he believes are corporate media’s abuse of power and excessive PR spin.
Adam Bandt
Adam Bandt, Greens MP for Melbourne also spoke at the conference, echoing Mayne’s sentiments for community broadcasters to lobby hard for the restoration of digital radio and AMRAP funding.
Bandt grew up listening to RTR FM in Perth and when he moved to Melbourne as a lawyer he used to do a show on 3CR.
“Community broadcasters provide a strong voice for their communities… as a 6RTR teenage listener the station opened my mind to music and information that I would never have heard anywhere else.”
He said the Government should not take community radio for granted and should restore funding for important projects.
“We must maintain this vital part of the Australian media landscape… The political straight jacket the government has put itself in, to achieve a surplus, comes as a blow to communities… It is a failure of courage to cut AMRAP funding and not to better fund digital radio expansion into regional areas.”
Bandt said his party, the Greens, supports the idea that regional Australia should move to digital radio and will be lobbying the government to allocate funding and to “ensure parity with the commercial sector.”