 |
 |
 The Ethnic Broadcaster |
| Production Schedule |
| Submission Guidelines |
| Archives |
| about the NEMBC |
| NEMBC Home |
| Serving the community |
| NEMBC Membership |
| NEMBC Constitution |
| Find Broadcasters |
| CONTACT NEMBC |
Archives: Winter 2004An antidote on air: people power wins at 2XX Channel 31 Sydney: the end of an era? Victor Marillanca celebrates 28 years in broadcasting Youth Coordinator's Plug-In Report Emerging Communities Project Officer's Report An antidote on air ‘The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its
existence, rather a condition of it’ Community radio 2XX FM was off air from 3rd May till 5th May 2004. Unable to pay $30,000 owed to the broadcast transmission monopolist Broadcast Australia, 2XX FM came under its axe. Years ago when I joined 2XX, I remember telling my dad that he
could hear me on the radio as I now have a show on Friday nights
at Canberra’s 98.3FM. As any typical conservative bourgeois
he did not seem to be interested in the radio frequency or the station.
His skepticism rested on a smirk, The fact is that since 1976, 2XX has been a fearless messenger of the Canberra community in providing an alternative antidote to commercial media. A stern critic of multinationals and monopolist power, its presenters have always dared to speak the truth of the struggles of the community and of the deprived. It is also a fact, that it takes $250 thousand a year to keep the station on air. Despite partial indexation, the Australian Government assistance for community broadcasting development has declined in real terms by 6% since the introduction of targeted funding in 1996/97. Almost 200 new community radio licences have been made available since the last major government increase in funding, however funding on a per station basis has fallen by more than 40%. Thus, when it comes to pay $30,000 for transmission costs Ms. Esguerra (Station Manager: 2XX) states, “I think it's an exorbitant amount. Sure commercial stations can afford to pay it but small community radio stations like us can't afford to pay it unless the government is going to subsidise it”. Until 1999, transmission services used to be run by the Department of Communications. Since that time transmission costs have also risen and now the services are regulated by commercial contracts, regardless of whether clients are commercial or community based. In this corporate world, 28 years of community service could be easily ignored by the moral principles of the Broadcast Australia’s capitalist corpocrats whose myopic view stands on organisational performance and not on purpose and consequence. As Senator Kate Lundy (Shadow Arts Minister) points out, “Broadcast Australia are quite arrogant in the fact that they effectively have a monopoly in Canberra. They charge community radio stations what they charge them because community radio stations can't go to air unless they go to Broadcast Australia.” However, the good news is that still there is enough strength in the community to strike back in vigor on its ideals and prove that you can unplug our air waves, but not our courage for solidarity as over $26,000 in subscriptions and donations have been raised to date, and unofficial moral support has been provided from the Local ACT Government and the federal opposition. So the moral of the story is, if you are a community radio and in debt at least have plans on how to write an article if you know things might get sticky. In other words, let’s be rational and make sure when it comes to issues of funding the government needs to be aware of the condition that we are in and the community support we have. For more details: Channel 31 Sydney: the end of an era? After ten years of broadcasting on Sydney’s UHF 31, Community Television Sydney (CTS) went to air for the last time on March 19. The day before, the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) allocated the permanent community TV licence to a new consortium, Television Sydney (TVS). Overnight, dozens of ethnic programs vanished, and even though TVS will not be prepared to broadcast until early 2005, no interim arrangement has been made to allow CTS and its communities to remain on air. How and did this happen? Why? And what happens to the ethnic broadcasters? The seemingly sudden decision is all about the way that the Channel 31 licence had been classified by the ABA. The licence on which CTS were broadcasting was a temporary licence. Even though their time on air extended across a decade, CTS were not a permanent licensee in the eyes of the law. The time for the allocation of the permanent licence came at the beginning of this year, under the new legislative framework for community television licences which was introduced in 2002. The ABA received applications from six groups, including one from Sydney’s full-time ethnic radio station 2000FM. According to (former) ABA Chair Professor David Flint, the decision to allocate the permanent licence to TVS was made on the grounds of community participation: “The ABA acknowledges CTS’ lengthy commitment to community television over the years. However, the Authority was of the view that TVS has demonstrated, to a higher degree than CTS, that it has established avenues through which members of the community may participate in the operations and programming of the proposed service.” This is a decision that has caused great confusion to CTS. Community participation is what CTS considers to be its first principle. Their website, which still features a program guide (see below), makes a public statement expressing their outrage. It poses a number of questions, including: “How can [the ABA] reject the only genuine community TV group that has over 90% of all Sydney's community television groups as a part of its membership?” CTS’s spokesperson, Salvatore Scevola, recently spoke to ABC’s Media Report. He said that CTS had legitimate grounds for expecting that the permanent licence would be allocated to them: “Based on the common law principle that when a licensee holds a licence on a trial basis, it does so on the basis that in the event that it applies for a permanent licence, that there is some legitimate expectation that it will receive it. And that is the regime and the precedent that sits with not just community broadcasting licences but with liquor licences, with other sorts of regimes of licences. It is something that is paramount, that we have proven our commitment and our ability to satisfy the criteria.” CTS then launched an appeal of the ABA’s decision through the Federal Court of Australia, which was dismissed on April 16. The appeal’s dismissal means that no interim broadcasting arrangement will be made; CTS will not be allowed to remain on air until TVS is ready to begin broadcasting. CTS was also ordered to pay TVS’s legal costs. Who is Television Sydney? TVS is a consortium of educational and community institutions. The primary bodies are Educational Training Community Television (ETC TV) and Sydney Local Information Community Educational Television Incorporated (SLICE TV). ETC TV is an umbrella group for educational institutions established by the University of Western Sydney (UWS) and Metro Screen, a community multimedia resource and training centre. SLICE TV is an umbrella group for Sydney community organisations, independent program producers and individuals. TVS is a non-profit organisation which has already promised to provide opportunities for ethnic communities. On the TVS board is Lex Marinos, who has been described by a TVS spokesperson as “a pillar of the whole ethnic community scene in Sydney.” TVS Chair, Professor Janice Reid, says: "TVS has a strong commitment to deliver high quality Australian content and culturally-diverse programming for all sectors of the community. We have been inundated with offers of support from many Channel 31 program providers, and others in the community who are also interested in becoming involved.” Although CTS supported a broad range of ethnic and other community broadcasters in its decade of broadcasting, criticism on this very issue has come from NEMBC member Inoke Huakau, Managing Director of 2000FM and member of the Ethnic Grants Advisory Committee. 2000FM services over 50 ethnic communities, and was one of the unsuccessful applicants for the Channel 31 permanent license. Inoke recently told Media Report that he was dissatisfied with CTS’s program content, quality of service and community contact: “Most of the programming that is going on there CTV for a long time, does not address what we believe to be the main issues, or the main purpose for community television here in Sydney. What we believe is that this service is supposed to get inside the community here in Sydney or in New South Wales, rather than bringing a lot of film and things like that from overseas community. For example, we would like to see what the community, the Indian community here is like… Not the Indian community in India, for example.” TVS have just under a year to prepare themselves for operation. In the meantime, Sydney’s UHF 31 is broadcasting round-the-clock static… not even Melbourne’s famous Channel 31 fishtank to remind viewers of what’s to come. To find out more: CTS website (the old Channel 31): www.channel31.org Victor Marillanca celebrates 28 years in broadcasting Victor Marillanca, NEMBC Vice-President and President of 2XX, celebrated 28 years behind the powerful microphone of ethnic community radio on 30 June, 2004. The anniversary was celebrated in style at 2XX with an evening of tributes, which included faxes from Bob McMullen, Shadow Minister for Reconciliation and Indigenous Affairs, and from the Uruguayan embassy. There was also a full-page story in Canberra’s Capital magazine. Victor’s early days at what was then Campus Community Radio in Canberra followed some horrific years as a student during Chile’s military coup of 1973. On his arrival to Canberra as a political refugee, he immediately took his message to the streets. He told Capital: On September 11, 1975, I was in [Canberra’s] Garema Place, talking against the dictatorship in Chile, but I was talking in Spanish because I couldn’t speak English. Everybody just walked past and didn’t take any notice, until a young person came to me and spoke in Spanish: “Can I translate for you?” He started translating and the people started listening. And the people are still listening at 2XX, where Victor and his team recently saved the station from an untimely end (see An antidote on air, p.3). Victor recalls that his wife was a little nervous about where community broadcasting might take him. “I promised her that I would retire after twelve months,” Victor laughs, “ and now, 28 years later…” George Zangalis, NEMBC President, made this tribute to Victor: Victor is the ethnic community broadcasters’ model: outspoken, articulate, multilingual and very active. He has encouraged and inspired the participation of a generation of ethnic community broadcasters, and fostered the involvement of generations to come. The leadership he has shown at the station level – as well as both nationally and internationally – is to be commended. 2XX (Canberra 98.3FM) still needs substantial listener support.
Visit www.2xxfm.org.au for more information. Youth Coordinator's Plug-In Report Plug-In was born out of the National Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasters’ Council’s (NEMBC) push to get more young people from ethnic and multicultural backgrounds involved in broadcast media. There are many young people who have an interest in radio and television broadcasting but there are a great deal who do not know where to start or lack the confidence to be actively involved. There are also many young people who are involved in broadcasting at stations and through their schools but only have basic skills due to a lack of access to training and development. Plug-In was set up to serve as an entry point for young people into broadcasting and to provide them with training and development. There is a considerable gap in the representation of youth ethnic people in both mainstream and community media. By providing forums and workshops such as plug-in, there is the possibility of getting more people involved and sharing ideas and confidence in the media. In late 2003, the NEMBC applied for a grant from the Victorian Multicultural Commission to run a ‘once-off’ event in March 2004. The NEMBC was awarded a small portion of what was requested, but decided to invest some of its resources to run the event as a pilot.
On March 27 the first event took place with over 50 people attending from all over the station including regional Australia. Out of all the young people who attended, 40 per cent spoke a language other than English at home while 60 per cent of people overall came from ethnic or multicultural backgrounds. The youngest person to attend was 12 years old while the oldest was 30. People came from as far as Shepparton and Tatura and Kyabram. The event featured an open forum in the morning and a workshop in the afternoon. The forum’s focus area was ‘how to produce specialist programs on radio and television’. It featured four speakers all from a variety community, public and commercial radio stations including Channel 31, SYN FM, SBS Radio and Channel 7. Speakers had a diverse range of backgrounds from journalism and current affairs to television sketch comedy production and ethnic radio talk-back programs. It was generally informal with many questions asked from the floor crossing many areas of broadcasting. Many young people later interacted with speakers and made their own connections with those involved. Triple J reporter and presenter Rachel Kerr conducted the workshop that took place in the afternoon. Rachel’s presentation was interactive and asked for participants to come up with their own ideas for short radio pieces and to think about the practicalities involved in constructing radio stories. The feedback we received was quite positive with many inquiring about future events. Some positives to come out of Plug-In were:
Emerging Communities Project Officer's
Report 58 communities are identified by the NEMBC as emerging because of their new migrant status (under 15 – 20 years of settling in Australia), and their rapidly growing ‘emerging’ presence (i.e. more than 15% population increase over that period). Most importantly though, there isn’t much or any media currently produced specifically for or by those communities. Feedback from communities and organisations working with them is that community radio programs for emerging cultural groups are extremely valuable, with very high listenership by community members. With a broadcasting program, the community gains a greater and more conspicuous identity. This time of information exchange, and the promotion of ideas and beliefs, cement emerging communities’ ability to settle well in their new chosen home. By the end of August, the NEMBC Victorian Emerging & Refugee Communities Project will have finished its DIMIA funding. At that stage, 65 people will have completed training in radio skills and have recruited other community members to support their broadcasting. 24 communities have been trained and supported, and 12 new emerging community program groups are now on air or waiting for airtime. In Victoria, of the 90 languages other than English being broadcast, 34 are regarded as emerging and refugee community languages. However, there are only 30 ethno-specific emerging communities on air. Some of these communities have only half an hour a week because of broadcast grid pressure and try to cater for their diverse communities by squeezing in more than one community language during this time. Many of these communities are fighting to find any or more time on air, with the demand to start up or increase broadcast time outstripping available airtime. Stations and current broadcasting groups need to be considering
several factors which still create broadcast grid stress. Like youth
broadcasting, newer communities need assistance from stations to
work well, and need to be facilitated with viable airtime (i.e.
enough time and at the right time – not midnight ‘til
2). Stations really need to consider the airtime allocation priorities
that they divide up between communities. The hard questions and
issues need to be tackled: of 168 hours per week, who should get
access to them? Keeping in mind that Australia is dominated by the
English language media, should time or funding should be reallocated
away from ethnic broadcasting groups which already have relatively
good access to the media? How can the community broadcasting sector
demand that the various tiers of government provide better resourcing
to facilitate enough airtime for emerging communities?
|