The Adelaide Ethnic Broadcasters Incorporated (EBI) was formed and started broadcasting ethnic programs firstly in Dutch and Italian, on 5UV, the same month. All previous foreign language broadcasts had been on commercial stations.

Here is a History of Community Radio written by Bob Hope-Hume as part of a larger project. It is very much about Western Australia and of course like all  historys of community radio,  subject to argument.

Ray Allsop had demonstrated stereophonic sound as long ago as 1938, and fruitlessly urged the case for FM as a member of the Control Board from 1953 to 1954. The ABC experimental stations, the first of which went to air in Melbourne in March 1947, were mere repeaters of programming from the ABC’s two AM stations, and were scarcely the best showcase for the medium. (Jones, 1995, p. 65)
A ministerial decree in March 1961 closed the four ABC experimental FM stations because of fears that they would interfere with the technology of television, newly introduced to Australia (Jones, 1995, p. 84).

In the nineteen-seventies a third tier of radio broadcasting was introduced; that of the community (non-government, non-commercial) broadcasters. An early example of non-government, non-commercial broadcasting had occurred when the University of New South Wales had set up VL2UV, a station restricted in content provision, to provide educational broadcasting on 1 May 1961 (Thornley, 1995). A different style of non-government, non-commercial broadcasting had been attempted in Australia during the years of anti-Vietnam war protests of the late nineteen-sixties and early nineteen-seventies when small transmitters were set up to broadcast messages of opposition to Australian involvement in the Indo-Chinese conflict on pirate stations such as 3DR and 3PR (Moran, 1995, p.153 - 154). These pirate stations came into existence to publicise an ideology oppositional to the policy of the Liberal (conservative) government of the day, an ideology that initially received little publicity through the government broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), or the commercial stations.

Following the election of a Labor (liberal/democratic socialist) government in December 1972, Australia was one of the first countries to legislate to introduce a separate sector of non-government, non-commercial or “public” (now known as “community”) broadcasting. In keeping with the expansive community spirit of the times, the Labor government was keen to establish a new national identity. Public radio was identified as playing a critical role in the this process which gave rise to a policy that lead to the decline of the influence of the BBC on Australian radio. Government policy began to move away from an Euro-centric view of Australian cultural policy towards a new construction of what it meant to be “Australian”. The increasing acceptance of Australian accents on radio (Potts, 1989, p. 12) (previously employed primarily for comic effect) was part of an increasing Australian nationalism as exemplified by the opposition to foreign military bases on Australian soil. This nationalist ideology lead to an acceptance of “ordinary” Australian voices on radio, thus reducing the need for the cultural “experts” who had control of the airwaves. This shift in Australian culture helped pave the way for community radio with its corresponding privileging of ordinary voices and movement towards radio as a pluralistic and democratic medium (Potts, 1989). Limitations on broadcasts in languages other than English were lifted in 1972. Part of this move towards the construction of a non-British Australian identity came from agitation by lobby groups comprising such diverse membership as ethnic councils, audio and music buffs, academics and radicals who desired recognition of the medium of radio as a public resource and the right of the public to gain access to the airwaves. On 28 June 1972 a radio station, bearing the call sign 5UV, operated by the University of Adelaide began broadcasting, as an educational station on a frequency outside the normal range of stations on the AM band. The Broadcasting Control Board imposed strict restrictions on content similar to those imposed on VL2UV. The frequency and content restrictions ensured the station was located on the broadcasting margins, both on the frequency spectrum and as a broadcaster.

In 1974 the Federal government flagged the possibility of further radio stations in Australia when the Minister for the Media, Senator Douglas McClelland announced the possibility of 200 new AM licences. This statement opened the possibility of public access to the airwaves and a break with the established two-tiered broadcasting system of commercial/government broadcasters. In March 1974 the report of an independent inquiry into FM broadcasting ( known as The McLean Report), that had been commissioned by the Federal government recommended the re-establishment of FM radio services in Australia.

In the same month as the McLean Report was released lobby groups for public access to the airwaves were formed with the establishment of the Alternative Radio Association in Melbourne, Victoria and the Sydney Public Broadcasting Association in New South Wales.

Following the endorsement of the recommendations of the report by Cabinet in April 1974 the Department of Media held a national conference on public broadcasting in Sydney on July 3-4. This conference pre-empted another non-government conference on public broadcasting also held in Sydney on July 5-6 that year. The government, through the pre-emption of the non-government conference, was clearly attempting to set the agenda for the future of community broadcasting in Australia. Following the non-government conference the Public Broadcasting Association of Australia (PBAA) - now the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA) – was formed.

On 23 September 1974 Cabinet invited The University of Adelaide and the Music Broadcasting Societies of Victoria and New South Wales to establish stations. The already established University of Adelaide station 5UV was moved to a more accessible spot on the AM dial and continued to provide educational talks. The MBS stations were to broadcast "fine music" on the FM band. Australian community broadcasting began by following the Reithian ideal of providing education and high culture, an ideal from which community radio has not entirely shaken free. Australia's first legal community radio station, 2MBS FM, went to air on 15 December 1974 in Sydney, New South Wales. It was followed shortly afterwards by 3MBS FM in Melbourne, Victoria and 5UV in Adelaide, South Australia. The demand for, and interest in, community broadcasting was made evident when the Australian Broadcasting Control Board received eleven applications for a community licence in Melbourne on 10 April 1975 compared to five applicants for a Melbourne commercial licence on 14 May 1975 (Griffiths, 1976). Seeing the demand for such a public service the government decided to dispense licences to twelve tertiary educational institutions.

Western Australia's first, and Australia’s ninth, public/community radio station began broadcasting on Saturday October 16 1976. 6NR (New Radio) began regular transmission from studios at the then West Australian Institute of Technology (WAIT) on 927 AM. Programming included educational programmes from WAIT and Murdoch University, ethnic broadcasting, Christian evangelism, children's stories and local issues. On 1 April 1977 Western Australia's first FM station and second public/community station, initially known as 6UWA FM, began broadcasting from the campus of the University of Western Australia (UWA) on 92.1 FM.  The new station was hailed by the local press as a “radio revolution” (Rivalland, 1977). The first day of official broadcasting began with a programme of test music between noon and 2:00 p.m.. The official opening by the Chancellor of UWA was broadcast from 6:45 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.. From 7.00 p.m. until 9.00 p.m. the evening’s programmes were drawn from Radio Nederland, the BBC and Radio Canada after which the Non Classical Music (NCM) programme The Medieval Cowboy was broadcast until the 11:00 p.m. close. The following week saw locally produced programmes of “fine” music along with talks programmes imported mainly from the BBC, Radio Canada and Radio Nederland. The same technological enthusiasm and wonder  as was shown at the arrival of radio in the twenties greeted the arrival of FM broadcasting. The 6UWA FM journal FM for example described some broadcasting experiments in binaural sound using something called a “dummy head system”.

In principle, the dummy head system is quite simple. It merely places microphones to receive sound analagously to sound about to enter the ear, with due regard to the directional frequency response of the ear and the acoustical influences of the skull and pinnae. The job of the headphones is to complete the propagation of sound into the ear (FM, November, 1977, p. 3).

FM radio also provided a new marketing opportunity for radio manufacturers. Advertisements placed in FM (Appendix 1) extolled the virtues of the new technology. “The Golden Sound of FM is the sound of radio listening at its very best” (FM, November, 1977, p. 2). Such advertisements with such terms as “radio listening at its very best” capitalised on the elitist nature of FM listening and broadcasting as well as marvelling at the new technology.

6UWA FM was to change its name to 6UVS FM eighteen months later when Murdoch University joined UWA as a junior partner to form a company known as Universities Radio Limited to hold the licence. In March 1979, 6NEW, with the brief of serving the local community, was established in Newman in the north west of Western Australia.

The new community stations were licensed as either “restricted commercial” or “public broadcasters”. The Control Board was not allowed to directly licence community broadcasters and so the board licensed 3CR, Melbourne, Victoria in July 1976 and 2CT, Campbelltown, New South Wales in May 1978 as restricted commercial stations, restricted by low power and prohibited from carrying commercial advertising. The restricted commercial licence category was later abolished with the stations moving into the community sector. The initial policy on public broadcasters allowed the government to grant licenses on a three-tiered system:
 
• Special – music, religion, ethnic, print-handicapped and other special interest programming or community of interest broadcasting,
• Community – for local community broadcasting; and
• Educational. 

In Western Australia both metropolitan community stations 6NR and 6UWA FM/6UVS FM broadcast under special licences while the rural 6NEW broadcast under a community licence. No Western Australian stations were ever granted educational licences and the educational category was later abandoned.

Other community stations in Western Australia have followed in the greater Perth metropolitan area with 101FM and Creative community radio (100FM) broadcasting to local communities in Rockingham and Fremantle respectively. Stations with spatially determined communities of interest are 6EBA FM presenting ethnic broadcasts, Sonshine FM broadcasting for the Christian community, Radio Print Handicapped with a brief to serve the print handicapped and 6AR, Aboriginal radio. The example of Radio Print Handicapped illustrates negotiation that occurs around the construction of an audience where an audience of non-English speakers has used the station’s reading of newspapers to develop their own pronunciation skills in Australian English language.

These legalised non-government, non-commercial broadcasters were  known as public broadcasters until the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 brought a change of name to “community broadcasters” The Broadcasting Services Act 1992 not only changed the name of the community tier but also expanded broadcasting from the three-tiered model to a six-tiered model that divides radio services into the following sectors.
.
• national broadcasting services
• commercial broadcasting services
• community broadcasting services
• subscription broadcasting services
• subscription narrowcasting services
• open narrowcasting services

At present no subscription services are being offered in Western Australia. Open narrowcasters include not only the aspirant community broadcasters, but also the Totalisator Agency Board, tourist radio and high schools.

The name change from public broadcasters to community broadcasters introduced by the Broadcasting Services Act 1992  came about because of a perceived need by the government to differentiate between the non-government “public broadcasters” – that claimed the term “public” by allowing public access – and the government “public broadcaster” (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) – who claimed the term “public” because it was funded from the public purse and broadcast in “the public interest”. So the term “public” has diverse meanings according to its use by different sectors claiming the term for themselves. Not only is the term public open to contest but there are indeed different publics as the diverse meanings claimed for the term suggest.
.
References

Jones, C. (1995) Something In The  Air: A History of Radio in Australia.
Kenthurst: Kangaroo Press.

Thornley, P. (1995) "Debunking the 'Whitlam' Myth: The Annals of Public
Broadcasting Revisited" in Media Information Australia 77. pp. 155-164.
 

 
 
 For more detailed information, go to the definative story from  Phoebe Thornley.
 

.

Sign Our Guestbook
View Our Guestbook