I feel for these small regional AM stations competing with one or more commercial stations on FM. And add to that a strong community station on FM I just don’t think some are viable.
ACMA will have to think seriously about their responsibility to “protect” the incumbent FM stations vs the need to give some of these AM stations life support and even allowing them to convert to FM in non-solus small markets like Kingaroy.
ACMA are too focused on protecting incumbents from competition IMHO. Compared to regulators overseas that is. In the US they are letting AM stations broadcast on FM in selected parts of their licence area to help them survive. Even so a number of rural AM stations in the US are shutting down. How long before it happens here?
In my opinion ACMA is also biased towards protectionism even in metro areas - hence only 4 commercial FM stations in major cities like Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Absurd in cities those sizes.