Australian Community Broadcasting Snapshot

Largest independant media sector:

484 licensed independent community owned and operated broadcasting services in total¹

360 long-term licensed community radio stations broadcasting 43,836 program hours per week of which just over 74% is locally produced,
19 percent sourced from other Australian sources (principally other community stations via the Community Radio Network satellite) and six percent sourced internationally. Music accounts for 71% of program content with the remainder being spoken word. 35% of music broadcast is Australian music
4 long-term licensed metropolitan community television services producing 166 hours per week of locally produced programming. On average each week they broadcast 61 hours of news and current affairs, 37.5 hours of religious programming, 33 hours of ethnic programming, 30.5 hours of youth programming, 27.5 hours of arts programming, 19 hours of educational programming, 17 hours of sports programming, 7 hours of programming for people with a disability, 6.5 hours of Indigenous programming and 2.5 hours of GLBTI programming
80 remote Indigenous community television services broadcasting locally produced programs and up to 14 hours per day of the ICTV service produced collectively by remote Indigenous communities
37 aspirant community radio organisations operating with temporary community broadcasting licences and 3 aspirant community television stations operating with open narrowcasting licences

Most diverse media sector:

123 stations (including 7 dedicated Ethnic stations) producing 2,125 hours of Ethnic community broadcasting each week. 4000 volunteer broadcasters from 125 distinct cultural groups broadcasting in 97 languages
96 stations (including 21 dedicated Indigenous community radio stations), producing 1,602 hours of Indigenous programming each week together with 80 Remote Indigenous Broadcasting Services (RIBS)
13 dedicated RPH stations providing 15 services where 1600 volunteers produce 1429 hours per week of RPH programming for people with a print disability; supplemented by 40 locally produced & 760 RPH satellite delivered programming hours broadcast each week on 20 generalist community stations
200 stations (including 36 full-time Religious radio stations) broadcasting 3,547 hours of religious programs per week
Stations with a focus on Youth, Senior Citizens, Arts, Fine music, Australian music and other specialist interests
3 satellite-based program distribution services -General, Indigenous and RPH
2 national news services - Indigenous (NINS) and General (NRN)
Community Television stations in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Lismore and Mt. Gambier & within 80 remote Indigenous communities

Volunteer driven:

Over 23,000 volunteer broadcasters and 960 support staff

Contributing an est. $212 million p.a. in the value of volunteer work hours²
21% of volunteers are under 26 years of age³

Training focused:

Over 8,000⁴ people undertake training in broadcasting skills each year

Growing national audience reach & regional, rural & remote presence:

24% of Australian radio listeners (3.76 million) listen to community radio in a typical week⁵. An estimated monthly national radio audience reach of more than 7 million and national television audience reach of 3.6 million⁶
78% of long-term licensed stations are located in rural, regional and remote areas
150,000 Australians financially support free-to-air community radio services as subscribers or members⁷

¹ Over 20,200 community radio volunteers and 3,000 community television volunteers.

² This estimate uses the same method established by Forde, Meadows & Foxwell, in 'culture commitment community' Griffith University, 2002 at p.28 where community radio volunteer input was conservatively valued at more that $145m. per annum. Here the calculation is based on median weekly earnings of $673 as outlined in the Australian Bureau of Statistics Ausstats data series 6310.0 published in August 2004.
An hourly rate of $17.71 for an average of ten hours per week, for 23,000 volunteers, yields a figure of $211,811,600 per annum. Use of the median measure produces a conservative estimate given that the average full-time adult earnings per week as given in ABS Ausstats 6302.0 of November 2005 was $1,026.

³ Source: preliminary results from CBD survey of 2003-04 year.

⁴ Community Broadcasting Database - 2002/03 data collection public release report October 2004 at p.8: 8,258 people received training; at p.12 113,370 people were subscribers or members. Published at www.cbonline.org.au

⁵ McNair Ingenuity Community Radio National Listener Survey, September 2004.

⁶ McNair Ingenuity Community Radio National Listener Survey, September 2004 for radio and OzTam Community Television cumulative audience reach 8am -12midnight, Mon 1. to Wed. 31 December 2003 for television.

⁷ Based on ABA LIC-007 Community of Interest & LIC 031 Community Radio Broadcasting Licence lists as at March 2005.

⁸ Community Broadcasting Database 2002/03 survey Final public report at page 12 shows that in that year there were 113,370 current subscribers or members and 36,470 donors.

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