Greens Announce $27m Community Radio & TV Package

The Greens have today announced a $27 million annual package for community radio and TV services, which includes $2 million a year to continue the digital radio transition and Australian Music Radio Airplay Project [AMRAP].

The announcement by Senator Scott Ludlam, made on Perth's RTR FM, also includes a $2 million broadcaster training fund and $12 million per year for the Community Broadcasting Foundation's rural activities.

The Federal Government pledged an extra $6 million over three years to the community radio sector back in June, after the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia [CBAA] led an orchestrated campaign to cement their digital future.

The Greens' package would provide an additional $1.4 million annually for the switch from analogue to digital radio stations, which would go towards further planning and trials, as well as $600,000 annually to expand the capacity of AMRAP, which was spent a few months on the endangered list earlier this year. AMRAP services new and emerging artists to community radio.

Ludlam said today, “On average, government provides only 8.5 percent of any community station's funding. While meagre funds and small emergency funds are welcomed by this largely self-funding community, given the training, news and entertainment it provides to so many Australians, it deserves the certainty the Greens plan provides.”

He added, “22,000 volunteers keep our community radio and TV stations on the air and investing in their training is an investment in Australia's digital economy.”

Today Adrian Basso, CEO of the CBAA, welcomed the policy, telling theMusic.com.au that he was “Supporting of [the package] being matched or improved by the Coalition or Labor.”

He added that the key funding for the community sector was digital investment.

“It's not certain where CTV [community TV] is going to be, where they'll sit in that [digital] space… [and] we're determined to have community radio there when digital is rolled out into regional and rural areas. We'll need bipartisan support for that.”

The Greens' package also includes $7 million annually for a local Content Creation Fund and $4 million per year for a Digital Hub Infrastructure to leverage the National Broadband Network.