Community Radio

94.9 was also used by NuCountry FM, a country music aspirant run by Dave Dawson (who used to host “High in the Saddle” a country music programme on 3RRR during the 80s and early 90s), but wasn’t successful. The people behind NuCountry FM set up the television show NuCountry TV on C31 Melbourne-Geelong which still runs today.

89.9 was used by what is now Kiss FM Dance Music Australia (not to be confused with KIIS FM 101.1) but was unsuccessful. They ended up buying low powered narrowcast licenses in various parts of Melbourne which now transmits their signal on the 87.6 to 88.0 MHz range in mono (which does not do the sound quality of electronic dance music justice, it is best heard on the internet in stereo).

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I Listen to Kiss on my IPhone at Times.

ACMA accepts enforceable undertakings from 4FRB

Brisbane community radio station 4FRB has had its licence renewed after giving the Australian Communications and Media Authority enforceable undertakings that will ensure ongoing community involvement in the station.

In considering whether to renew the licence of Family Radio Ltd, the licensee of 4FRB, the ACMA noted that 4FRB had recently entered into a Deed of Agreement with Hope Media Ltd, the licensee of 2CBA, a community radio service in Sydney.

The ACMA was concerned that this agreement had the potential to limit 4FRB’s capacity to comply with the community participation licence condition.

‘We want the Brisbane community to be able to continue to be involved in decision-making about the operations of the service,’ said acting ACMA Chairman, Richard Bean. ‘The Brisbane community should also be able to have a say in selecting and providing programs.’

By offering the enforceable undertakings, 4FRB was able to assure the ACMA that it would take the actions necessary to ensure compliance with the community participation licence condition if the licence was renewed.

These include developing appropriate policies about, and reporting to the ACMA on, a range of operational and other matters.

The tale of 96.1FM in Melbourne came up during Senate Estimates today, with Radioinfo reporting Senator Eric Abetz’s question to the ACMA chairman Richard Bean. In short: why hasn’t the frequency been reallocated since Lion 96.1 went off air?

While I’m happy to be corrected, in the research I did for the already existing Melbourne Jewish Radio Wikipedia page, MJR (as Lion 96.1) operated under a TCBL between June 2010 and June 2011, with spectrum not being made available after that date (ACMA media statement here). The Lion would then live again between December 2011 and March 2015, timesharing the 1674 AM Narrowband license alongside Surf City Sound - now leased out to the Punjabi language Radio Haanji.

J-Air has been broadcasting from St. Kilda on an LPON license since 2014. According to Abetz, they’ve made three (unsuccessful) applications for a TCBL on 96.1FM. I’m not sure why such a frequency was chosen - it’s only 0.2mHz away from 96threeFM Geelong, which to my knowledge operates at the same power as Bay 93.9 and K rock.

It would be no different to the situation of community stations like 94.1 3WBC, 94.9 JOY, 95.7 3GDR and 96,5 3INR all also being 0.2 MHz away from high power Geelong stations.

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Lion FM was a pretty fun listen at times: they played Yiddish music next to 80s rarities such as Animotion’s “I Engineer”. I think the egg-man would concur with that. 96.1 is also subject to interference from 3ABCFM Shepparton and Star FM Mt. Gambier when tropo is active.

Indeed, it was an interesting station. Though stealing a good DX frequency was not appreciated by me at the time - it was a fair powerhouse right across metro Melbourne despite being a ‘local area’ community broadcaster

From memory, wasn’t it a series of internal power struggles and non-payment of licence fees that led them to being shut down in the first place? Might explain ACMA’s hesitance towards reissuing another TCBL to them

one thing about 4FRB (96.5 fm) is that about 6 months ago there was a massive schism in the board. the CEO Brett McLeod, Content Director Liam Renton and Drive co-host Paul Burns all leaving - Brett and Liam were driven out by the board and two of the things that led to this were the agreement the board wanted with Hope to share programming (on a pretty much full time basis) and fallout after Brett slashed the cost of the radio school from $1800 each to around $200 (it has risen back up now that brett is gone)

the stations programming has had a pretty big shift since the change in CEO and Content director. the music being played is closer now to the music on Rhema than what was previously on 96.5 (lots more slower songs) and people are not happy

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It’s a Christian community station. Not a bad thing for.them to stop acting like a defacto commercial station if it better suits their remit.

Then again, programming sharing would go against that. I feel like ACMA would agree.

So many christian stations are defacto commercials, Light FM in Melbourne is the biggest example in Victoria. They play a huge amount of popular music during the dayside, and it barely sounds religious at all.

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And yet in other threads people are outraged at the possibility of the church buying back 2CH.

I just don’t see why religious stations need a community licence. Go ahead and buy a commercial one.

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I don’t have an issue with religious organisations, whether they be Christian, Muslim, Jewish or whatever, operating community stations.

But my comment was based on the fact that a group are looking at potentially buying (back) a commercial licence and people here are still outraged. They can’t win.

To me, “commercial” and “christianity” are mutually exclusive.

Religion has to me, always implied “not for profit”, thus they shouldn’t be involved in commercial ventures, or be sounding too commercial as a community or narrowcast broadcaster.

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Agreed. I don’t really have a problem with religious broadcasting as such, whether it be Christian, Muslim, Jewish or anything else. Religious broadcasting isn’t to my tastes personally, but I do appreciate that there is an appetite for it since there are several religious radio stations/networks in this country.

However, I do think religious organisations shouldn’t be involved in commercial ventures (like commercial radio stations) or trying to sound too much like a commercial station under a community or narrowcast radio licence if they’re trying to present themselves to the public as a not for profit organisation. If religious community stations are trying to sound too much like a commercial station, then ACMA should do some investigations like they would with any other community station that’s trying to sound too much like a commercial station.

In Brisbane, it isn’t just the Christian 96.5 station that tries to sound commercial. The local community broadcasters all seem to devote much of their schedule to playing music with various slogans about being the home of classic hits etc. Fairfax news can be heard on some and the John Laws Show as well. If you didn’t hear “station sponsor” at the end of each advert you would think you were listening to a commercial station.

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I don’t necessarily have a problem with community stations “sounding” like commercial radio.

Community or amateur radio doesn’t have to equal poor sounding radio. If a community or not-for-profit station can pull off a polished sound and if it gets supported by its intended community then isn’t that a good thing.

Although it is a fair point about commercial programming such as Macquarie or John Laws being used. I suppose it makes sense if that content is not being made available on a local commercial outlet, like in a regional area, but if it’s happening in a market where that content is already available commercially then I don’t see a point in community radio including it.

I know some stations in Melbourne used to (or possibly still do) relay 3AW news on the hour. I don’t see the point in that. At least stations like Joy FM would compile their own hourly news bulletins rather than just pipe in a news service from a commercial station.

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The appeal of community radio to me, has always been more of a “relaxed” feel, including announcers that don’t try and talk too fast, and take the time to speak about the music and/or the community.

To me, community radio doesn’t need snazzy sounding jingles or any of those other elements that try to appeal to a mass audience.

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I took commercial in this case to mean a commercial music mix as opposed to Christian or other types of various niche music genres that would otherwise not be a viable option for a commercial operator.

Some community stations here do a good job of providing such a music based service that plays content that would otherwise not be heard such as 50s-70s music (Sunshine FM, 94.1 FM) , country music (4AAA), alternative (ZZZ) and dance (Switch) etc.

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I think there can be a fine line between a polished sound and sounding too commercial. Stations like aspirants like the old Hitz FM could do good promos and have good announcers and had a good polished sound and playlist but it was still unquestionably community radio. And Joy FM, although I haven’t listened to it for ages, used to be similar in that it had a good mix of presenters and presentation but it didn’t sound too commercial. This was more so during the day when they had more mainstream playlists and presentation during the day, but in the evenings they had more of the typical niche market programs for certain sectors within their community.