Community Radio is the third sector of the Australian broadcasting industry. From a small
beginning in 1972, today there are over 100 community or public radio stations around the
country and it is the fastest growing free-to-air broadcasting sector in Australia. Community
radio stations have been growing at the rate of 10 to 15 a year during the last 5 years and there
are around 60 aspirant groups waiting for licenses at present.
Australia's three-tier broadcasting sector include the commercial sector, the government
funded Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS)
and the community broadcasting sector which comes under the umbrella of the Public
Broadcasting Association of Australia (PBAA).
While community radio has been operating under the PBAA banner for almost two decades,
community television is yet to be introduced in Australia. Last month (February 1993) the
government gave the go ahead for community television on a trial basis for at least one year and
a permanent service is due to begin in Sydney and Melbourne around July 1993.
While community television groups have had to fight long and hard for almost a decade to get the
go ahead from the government, the community radio experience in Australia has been a great
success story which is been grudgingly admitted by the rest of the broadcasting industry only
now. The very success of community radio has triggered a campaign in the last couple of years
by the commercial radio sector to get the community stations out of the FM band.
Community radio operates without the restrictions or the restraints often applied to radio
stations whose business is to either make profit for its owners by presenting advertising as a
major component of their programming format or to satisfy a more national agenda within a
clearly defined "professional style and standard" and government budgetary restrictions.
This paper will focus on why the commercial and the government radio sectors have been unable
to provide access to the airways for independent voices especially from indigenous and ethnic
migrant groups, and how the community radio sector has been able to provide exactly that.