The global financial crisis (GFC) and increased costs of upgrading to a digital platform has put great strain on the community radio sector. With stations greatly depending on listener contribution, community radio reflects the financial situation of its subscribers and donators. Many communities now face a bleak financial future leaving the outlook of their community radio stations much the same.
Stations such as 5TCB, 2SER and FBI have all been struck hard. 5TCB had to going off air in April after 25 years on air “citing financial problems,” while FBI was forced to hold extensive and intrusive fundraisers to raise awareness of the fact that no contributions means no radio station.
I am a volunteer for radio station 2SER and I can tell you first hand some of the things that are threatening the existence of community radio in contemporary society. To elaborate more on the impact the financial crisis has on the situation I’ll start off by saying that 2SER has 90 000 listeners a week, less then 7% contribute to the station.
Since the GFC hit Australia the number of listeners has not dropped but the number of people contributing has, with 33% of listeners now saying they can’t afford to donate. Apart from this aspect, 2SER is part of Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA) which is made up of over 21 000 volunteers that donate their time and efforts to power the stations and deliver content.
Many of these volunteers, myself included, have been personally affected by the GFC and find it difficult to keep donating their time without getting paid as they have to start putting more of their efforts into their paid jobs. Whilst I continue to volunteer much the same I can definitely say my financial situations suffers greatly from the fact I have to spend less time at my ‘real’ job.
This type of situation would not have affected me so much in the past because I would have been able to find a job that I could work fewer shifts in however, now many jobs are firing employees that can’t work a lot of shifts and replacing them with those that can. So I have been affected in this way, luckily I am still a student and don’t need to pay for many of the necessities most of the other volunteers need to.
So the GFC has hindered the flow of money coming from sponsors and subscribers, as well as making it more difficult for volunteers to keep donating their time. 2SER is now looking at different methods of boosting the number of subscribers.
It is holding a Radiothon during the month of October and encouraging people to donate, subscribe or re-subscribe by offering prizes, discounts, privileges and hosting various events around Sydney that require an entrance fee.
However, all of these require volunteers to donate more of their time to answer calls and manage events. In the 2SER office there are sheets of paper stuck to the wall with dates and times of events requiring volunteer assistance. The pages look almost empty with hardly any volunteers able to spare anymore time.
Apart from volunteers, a smaller percent of funding comes from advertising and support from artists. Unlike commercial radio, community stations like 2SER play more Australian and un-signed artists and focus their advertising on local events and music. This type of not mainstream music limits listeners to those that are interested in more underground events and artists.
Comparing this type of approach to say a station like, 104.1 Today F.M. community radio focuses more on their personal style of content and prides itself on being informative. Commercial radio aims to please everybody and it more set on being entertaining then informative. Unfortunately, this type of broad content captures a larger variety of audiences in more age groups.
Commercial radio is also able to host larger personalities and events and give away bigger and more prizes then community radio. Ultimately a community radio station like 2SER caters to a younger demographic which is interested in the arts and real news, they do not get their listeners through ‘shock’ techniques and flashy prizes, but unfortunately this does limit the amount and type of listeners that tune in, in turn decreasing financial funding and advertising funds.
Seeing the many reasons community radio stations suffer financially in normal circumstances and how this is exasperated during the GFC, it becomes clear why they will find it difficult to keep up with the switch to digital radio now.
Digital radio works by “turning both sound and data into digital signals at transmission and then decoding them at the other end.” With most community radio stations to yet even make the switch to playing music using MP3’s, this type of digital upgrade will almost be impossible.
Austereo stations 104.1 Today F.M. and Triple M are supporting the change and it may mean that all stations will now be forced to upgrade as contemporary society is always striving for better and faster technology. This will mean that many radio stations, such as 2SER will literally be wiped out.
With the combination of the GFC, the introduction to digital radio and generally less commercially driven content, the community radio may not be able to survive as a contemporary media practice for too much longer. However 5TCB’s broadcasting general manager, Michelle Bawden, said that “it’s interesting that sometimes you don’t get that degree of support until you’re at a disaster point- until things are really tough.” Hopefully community support will keep community radio up and running no matter what.
