‘Money can’t buy me love’ - Australian media at the crossroads

It is one example of the disdain federal governments - of either persuasion over the past two decades - have shown Australian media audiences.

And now for the good news: Australian audiences are fighting back! A series of research projects over the past seven years centring on Australia’s burgeoning community broadcasting sector offers a glimmer of hope. Australia has the largest per capita listenership to community radio than any comparable country. Something unique is happening here and we are only just beginning to understand what it is.

Two national surveys in 2004 and 2006 established beyond doubt that community radio, in particular, captures about 25 per cent of Australians aged 15 years and above - that’s four million listeners across the country in an average week. This compares with about seven million weekly listeners to national, publicly-funded broadcasters, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), and almost 11 million who tune into commercial radio. Not bad for a sector whose entire turnover in 2006 was $51 million - a fraction of the annual allocations to the national broadcasters. And small change for the commercial broadcasting sector with an annual expenditure of more than $4 billion!

Assuming that all 16 million Australians over age 15 watch commercial television and listen to commercial radio, the commercial sector spends around 30 times more per head than the community sector to attract listeners and viewers.

It conjures up the catchcry, “Money can’t buy me love” - or should that read audiences?

So why is this happening? A Griffith University research team - of which I was a member - has completed the first in-depth study of Australia’s community broadcasting audiences. Over a two-year period, we organised almost 50 focus groups and undertook hundreds of face-to-face interviews with the multifarious audiences for community radio and television.

It seems likely that it is the first study of its type globally to investigate an entire media sector. It is clear from our analysis that a large proportion of the growing and committed audience for community radio and television across Australia has been turned off by commercial media here. How could this be when we are talking about a $4 billion annual spend by commercial broadcasters in an effort to create a consumer base?

Audiences have made it patently clear what they want - and equally clear that they are not getting it from commercial radio and television or the ABC and SBS to a lesser extent. The studies have taken account of the extraordinarily diverse audiences who make up Australia’s mediascape.

This includes the urban, suburban and regional centres where generalist, youth, seniors, or vision-impaired communities who manage to find an outlet for their ideas through community radio and television.

It includes listeners and viewers of Indigenous radio and television from capital cities to the most remote regions of this continent.

And it offers millions of multicultural Australians access to information and services unavailable through mainstream media channels. Both commercial radio and television have virtually abandoned sections of regional Australia. Indeed, in around 30 locations around the country, community radio is the only local radio available.

We’re not talking here about a cohort of left-wing radical groups hellbent on smashing the existing system of government in Australia. In fact, the majority of community radio stations in Australia, now based in regional areas, are politically conservative. And they vote!