Community radio contemplates public campaign against proposed cuts
The industry association which represents the hundreds of community radio stations across Australia, the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA), is threatening a public campaign against recommendations to cut more than $17.5m in funding to the sector.
The Federal Government’s Commission of Audit report released yesterday recommended the government scrap funding for the Community Broadcasting Program on the grounds it already funds public broadcasters the ABC and SBS, adding there was a “limited rationale” in also providing funding to community radio.
Jon Bissett, general manager of CBAA told Mumbrella the impact of any cuts to the program would be dramatic. “This will have a significant impact. This funding is taken by more than 150 stations around the country for various things that would be put at significant risk,” said Bissett.
“We are putting in place a campaign probably for next week. We are just waiting to hear back on a little bit more information from the minister and others. Once we get those facts we will decide if we push the button.”
“Public broadcasting only worthwhile if done by government agencies”??? Utterly stupid.
These people are wholly incapable of quantifying the REAL VALUE of anything.
Are we seriously stumping up $17m for community broadcasters! Wow… Just goes to show that when money is handed out, it’s not valued. If they can’t self fund then you have to ask what’s the point?
@PS if you want them to self fund they should be able to offer proper advertising. But we all know that’s not going to happen.
@PS- you clearly don’t understand community broadcasting. It’s designed for the community and provides vital programs and services. It’s also treated as NFP, so as Billy C alluded to, they have massive advertising restrictions. Despite this, most community broadcasters are self funded or near enough.
You also ignore the fact that the $17.5m covers mostly infrastructure and is spread across over 350 media outlets. Media diversity and independence is essential for this country, and the funding for this is a drop in the ocean.
@PS So all the things in the world that require government support and cannot self-fund are worthless?
How dare we spend public money on the Royal Childrens Hospital?? They have the Good Friday Appeal ….
$1 billion vs $17.5 million. Seems like Community Broadcasting is providing a lot of value for money.
Considering the sector turnover is $93 million a year, Government funding is only about 18%.
Count in another $388 million or so of volunteer time, the Government only provides 3.5% of funding for the sector. The Government is getting an absolute bargain for their money.
Bet the ABC or SBS can’t run on those type of numbers and deliver 350 radio and 5 TV services.
One does have to wonder though just how Community Television survives without ANY Government financial support.
I would hope that the Government would continue to support Community Broadcasting but that support needs to be fairly distributed, not just doled out to a handful of politically influential, mostly inner city community radio stations.
The best thing the Government could do for Community Broadcasting, and especially TV is to allow more realistic sponsorship regulations.that allow producers to offer something worthwhile and assist in creating the infrastructure to more easily distribute programs around the country, mailing USB sticks is hardly efficient in this day and age.
How many people actually listen to community broadcasters? The numbers are far lower than that for SBS, which has less than 1% of the population tuning in at any one time. How can the spending of millions of taxpayers money be justified when most of the shows on community radio are done by backyard DJs on the same level as someone using amateur or CB radio as a hobby.
Not only have some of our best broadcasters cut their teeth in community broadcasting, it also provides a valuable local resource the commercials/ABC/SBS simply cannot deliver. EdgeFM and PowerFM are two great examples down my way on the south coast.
Declared conflict of interest: one of my sons ‘worked’ in community radio (National Radio News, CSU — http://www.csu.edu.au/NRN) while completing his BA (Journalism).
Ask Hamish McDonald (https://alumni.csu.edu.au/news/1081-alumnus-hamish-macdonald-to-visit-csu) about how CSU’s community radio shifts prepared him for the cut and thrust of reporting city hall and police rounds in Canberra for WIN News (and ask him about that i/v when the local police sergeant closed a station one night…).
What a crap argument Listener. It’s like saying how many people use cancer-fighting drugs – can’t be more than 1% – and yet we spend millions of taxpayers money on them.
Australia would be a far better place if we rediscovered our sense of community and ditched the user-pays trickle-down economics Tea Party claptrap.
Listener – I can answer that question straight away for you – there are 4.4 MILLION listeners to community radio on a weekly/monthly basis, and nearly 11 MILLION that tune in here and there. Go do your own research, that’s data from the national CBAA survey done in 2012.
$17.5m is stretched a hell of a long way when one puts it like that. This is a massive audience that will be directly affected, as many of these are people that must listen because they are blind, cannot read, don’t speak English, need religious programs or want local news and events.
That doesn’t even touch on the independent voice that community radio provides.
The actual official 2014 figures for Community Radio listenership is that over 5,027,000 people listen to a Community station each week – and that’s 28% of all Australians who listen to radio weekly. Those listeners are dedicated and consistent, with the average listener tuning in for 14.5 hours a week. The main reasons cited for listening are 1) independent opinions delivered by local voices that sound like real people; and 2) specialist music.
The average Community radio station runs on a lean $73,390 of annual income, and three-quarters of that is self-generated (mainly from sponsorship and listener membership). Over 22,000 people are involved nationally as volunteers at Community stations.
Thanks Seth, I hadn’t seen 2014 figures yet. Community Radio listenership has surged – 28% is nothing to sneeze at!
Seth, please define what you mean by ‘official’.
To the best of my knowledge there are NO official listenership figures for Community radio, that are industry endorsed.
Then please elucidate as to the methodology that lies beneath your claim of a listenership of over 5m per week.
John please refer to the National Listener Survey for Community Radio. This is independently conducted by McNair Ingenuity.
http://cbaa.org.au/sites/defau.....202013.pdf
Can’t see how Community Radio figures they are any less official that Commerical Radio figures.
The sector body arranges the survey methodology, external party arranges the research and the data is published.
While it will never challenge the audience share of the big budget commercial and government broadcasters. The issues is a little more than raw numbers – most of the programming is niche and thus uncommercial to run in any other manner. One good example is Radio for the Print Handicapped – a vital community service no one else would ever run.
Andrew, thank you for the link to the results infographic. Is there a link that also explains the sampling frame, data collection methodology and most importantly the questions asked?
While the data may very well be mathematically correct, the data may also not be what they seem to purport to be.
As a simple example (and I am not saying that this is what may have happened – it’s just an example I see in lots of countries and media around the world), is that the question goes something like “Have you listened to Community Radio?” (and again, I stress it could be ANY medium), and in essence you get an “Ever Reached” estimate. However, most electronic media work on an “average minute audience” metric, which as you would know is always a MUCH smaller number.
While both metrics may be mathematically correct, they are not directly comparable.
And Statman, that is why we have industry bodies that are tri-partite (seller, buyer, client) to establish the most appropriate and acceptable methodologies and metrics for each medium that also provides data comparable to other media.
We can quibble endlessly as to the relevance of survey numbers and methodology, (although the National Listener Survey is govt-funded McNair Ingenuity research meant to inform departments as to the realities of listenership), and of course all sectors prefer to put the best spin on the results. (For example, commercial radio surveys used to list ‘Other stations’ as an option, until that combined listening figure started to out-rate many of the stations that were paying for those surveys!)
But the undisputed bottom line here is that millions of Australians listen to and appreciate what Community broadcasting offers, and thousands of people (almost all of them volunteers) are directly involved each week in bringing creative and interesting programs to the nation’s ears.
The Commission of Audit’s recommendation that funding to the sector should be abolished is based on their premise that as “The Commonwealth Government already provides over $1 billion per annum to the operation of the public broadcasters (ABC/SBS) – there is limited rationale for the Commonwealth to also subsidise community radio services”. This statement demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding as to the nature and underlying principles of Community broadcasting – those being independence, diversity and localism.
And again, it needs to be noted that three-quarters of the Community sector’s income is self-generated, mostly by listener membership and limited sponsorship.
But the government’s contribution is also necessary and justified – allowing for such things as national training, upgrading of studio and transmission equipment, content development, national program-sharing, the promotion of Australian music and many other important initiatives.
And in comparative media terms, it’s not a lot of money for the national outcomes that it funds.
Seth, I understand your position and agree that the cutbacks are retrograde at best. I agree the importance of Community Radio in our social landscape, especially in the more remote and disadvantaged areas.
But I stand by my point that reach comparisons, while important for government funding planning, is not the primary metric that is used to make commercial decisions when buying a radio campaign (it could be used as a strategic input – but not when transacting spot buys or sponsorships).
Either way, I wish you best of luck!
Spot on Statman – the raw numbers are one thing, but the style of program is another, and the level of engagement that community has is something that commercial would kill for. These cannot be quantified.
The numbers are actually irrelevant – the mere fact that these services are provided in such a cost-efficient manner makes this policy a completely short-sighted and ignorant recommendation.