Community Radio Broadcasters were led to believe that we could expect better from a Labor Government, the irony here is that a party of so called true believers appears to have lost track of its social conscience.
Representatives of Community Radio Sector Peak Bodies met the Minister for Communications Minister Conroy in his Melbourne office on Friday to lobby for increased support for the sector’s core operational funds.
When the delegation put the plea before the Minister, for support, we were met with the New Labor spin which will become common speak to the wider Australian public leading up to the 2008-9 budget.
He said this, “it’s a Cabinet Decision, that if something wasn’t announced before the Reserve Bank interest rate rise, then it would not be going forward in the next budget”, except for what he called exceptional circumstances.
“Our priority is to fund our election promises”, he said .
The Community Radio and Television sector has for many years been “systematically crippled” in a pernicious evaporation of funds; as we struggled to provide the basic services to a quarter of the population and up to 50% in some areas (McNair Ingenuity audience survey.) The core funding for community radio has been shrinking for 15 years as new stations come on stream and our population increases, the demand for new services increase.
Community Radio needs substantial commitment from this government to service the needs of the whole community broadcasting sector, we don’t need more of the same platitudes and condescending speak from government. For their part the ABC and SBS are unable to provide the services that community radio or community television can to its audiences although they like to think that they can.
Just compare the budgets of both those very well public funded organizations and ask yourself, who provides the best value for money.
The ABC will receive $82 Million for a new channel, the community sector will receive nothing.
Add to that the inequality of the carve up of the digital spectrum and you get the idea that community radio and television is not a priority for any government. That’s sad for a country that pretends to represent and govern for all Australians.
The Digital spectrum carve up is a farce and a gift to the Commercial, ABC, and SBS, even though this deal was a left over of the previous government, there is strong sense among community broadcasters of being “done over”. Work it out for yourselves, the radio spectrum in Adelaide for example under digital, is divided up into 8 sections, with a spare 9th section.
The 6 commercials receive 1 section of spectrum, in digital speak that is 128 KBPS (kilo bytes per second) The community sector of 6 stations receive 2 sections which is 256 KBPS combined spectrum, divide that by the 6 stations and you have 42 KBPS each community station.
The Commercials, ABC and SBS will be able to run 10 KBPS data or text channels within their allotted spectrum as they have the capacity to do so. On the other hand a community radio station that wants to run a text channel in Adelaide would be reduced to 32KBPS.Other states have similar concerns to Adelaide; the worst off city is Perth, where they have to split the spectrum up among 7 community broadcasters.
This is really pathetic and at the very minimal of spectrum required to deliver quality broadcasting or sound. A minimum 67 KBPS is considered to be the benchmark among most engineers needed to broadcast something that would sound like a quality program.
After all, the introduction of digital was supposed to deliver a better quality service. On the other hand the ABC and SBS get a fat 9 sectors of spectrum between them, giving them the capacity to start up more services, as if we don’t already have enough ABC services. The copious amount of spectrum allocated to the ABC further erodes the community radio sector (ABC community radio anyone).
Just ask the Commercials , ABC and SBS if they would be prepared to run a digital radio channel on 27 KBPS. And we haven’t even discussed the sub metro or bush stations.
Yes, we were silly and naive enough to believe a party with a supposed social conscience would come through, how wrong we were.
Can we trust them in the future, you decide.