I completely agree with all of that, partucularly about operators being allowed to dictate terms for far too long. Unfortunately you may be right about it being too late to correct.
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I would love to see a couple of national licences issued, with no restriction on ownership.
The only catch is the new licence holder has to set up in all capitals and significant regional centres (as nominated by the ACMA).
They can carry national programming 24/7, but must do a localised (state based) news service.
And the new licensee must do the engineering work as to not interfere with anyone else and nominate the frequency they wish to use in each location…
I can hear the court injunctions now!
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Which defeats the purpose of a national licence.
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I don’t see how…
State based news, produced by a central location, Sydney/Melbourne/Darwin…who cares. Not even advocating local ads, national generic ads from Bunnings, Coke, heck even Harvey Norman…
I would have thought 8 x 3 Minute news bulletins is not too much to comply with every hour during the day…
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I don’t think state based news is necessary or should even be allowed under such a national commercial license model.
It should be unashamedly national so listeners still have a reason to seek the existing local stations instead if they want local content. It will help protect the localism of the existing stations while still providing alternative new content at a national level.
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So just another SCA or ARN? What’s the point?
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No it can be quite different. The original incarnation of Virgin Radio in the UK was this concept and worked well despite being only on AM outside of London. You would never confuse it with the local commercial stations at the time.
Even the national off-band Radio 2 station we had here for a while sounded “national” rather than networked local stations. I think Radio 2 would have worked if it was on normal AM frequencies with normal power.
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OK, So lets drop local news…
What format might we find acceptable…
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A national commercial DAB multiplex was the obvious move - you get to broadcast in the metro areas at the cost of needing to grow the platform and bear the costs of rolling out to regional areas and letting the local broadcasters piggyback the transmitters.
I’d similarly offer national DRM licenses in the spectrum that the ACMA have reserved for that - either on AM or in Band I. I wish we’d be more willing in general to just let companies fail on spectrum we don’t have another use for.
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Unless it’s 90 Seconds Worth
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I reckon BBC Radio 2 or Breeze would go really well.
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A couple of things I’d consider thinking about how things have developed in South East Queensland. First would be to get rid of the overlap aspect of the 2 station rules. While technically Brisbane and Sunshine Coast (Nambout) LAPs overlap, the stations in the two markets don’t compete enough to stop a company owning 2 stations in both markets. Unless the overlap is way over 50% the 2 owners rule shouldn’t apply.
Alos, why not lessen some of the restrictions on community radio when they apply to stations that are serving a wide area such as the sub-metro stations in Brisbane on 99.7, 100.3, 101.5. Let them get a better financial foundation by being more commercial. Why can’t Logan City and Redcliffe for example have their own commercial radio stations? Expand that to regionas as well, but have ownership restrictions to keep stations local.
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Some good ideas there.
The Sunshine Coast / Brisbane overlap has always been very dubious IMO. The overlap areas in northern Brisbane are overwhelmingly part of the Brisbane market, not SC.
Interesting you raise commercial services in Logan and Redcliffe. Rebel has actually requested their commercial service be allowed to cover all of Logan and not just part of the city.
It is a bit controversial but I would also amalgamate Brisbane and Ipswich and allow 94.9 to move to Mount Coot-tha. If that was to happen they could adjust the boundary of the remote NE licence and allow Rebel/Breeze to service the more rural parts of the current Ipswich LAP and the whole of Logan. This could be achieved possibly with a lower power transmitter from where 94.9 currently broadcasts.
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Reminds me of this piece I read on radio today…
Doesn’t help that the “new” CRA, whatever they wish to call themselves already felt the need to put on the “Ritz” for some members of federal parliament… especially the individuals pertaining to communications roles…
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Kicking a screaming…. For sure!
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This conversation reminded me of this I saw the other week. While the article talks primarily about 5G advanced in the context of mobile calls, I would think this could also be a game changer for IP based audio streaming (given speeds would be well and truly sufficient to support it) in regional and remote areas.
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Paywall
End of a love affair: AM radio is being removed from many cars
Automakers, such as BMW, Volkswagen, Mazda and Tesla, are removing AM radios from new electric vehicles because electric engines can interfere with the sound of AM stations. And Ford, one of the nation’s top-three auto sellers, is taking a bigger step, eliminating AM from all of its vehicles, electric or gas-operated.
Now, although 82 million Americans still listen to AM stations each month, according to the National Association of Broadcasters, the AM audience has been aging for decades. Ford says its data, pulled from internet-connected vehicles, shows that less than 5 percent of in-car listening is to AM stations.
Ford spokesman Alan Hall said that because most AM stations also offer their programming online or on FM sister stations, the automaker will continue to “offer these alternatives for customers to hear their favorite AM radio music and news as we remove [AM] from most new and updated models.” The 2024 Mustang is Ford’s first internal combustion model to be marketed without AM.
Several big automakers, including Toyota and Honda, say they have no plans to eliminate AM radio, and General Motors, the nation’s top-selling carmaker, has not announced its intentions.
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Let’s hope ACMA is reading this stuff. What is their plan to get our stations off AM and on to FM or DAB?
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Probably to enforce AM radio still being available in cars and elsewhere.
Particularly in our big country where even the 200kw+ FM regional ABC sites still don’t have the coverage of a 50kw AM site
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Australia simply isnt a large enough market to start enforcing AM radios in new cars
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