Oh dear…
I never expected an enthralling budget reply, but my god…essentially all we heard was “waaa waaa waaa” - and leaving me with the question - how much longer will they put up with Brendan?
At work today, one of the girls was visibly in a bad mood and she even flat out told me that she was feeling like crap.
I was thinking to myself “What can I do?”
And then it hit me.
I walked up to her and gave her a huge hug.
Such a simple thing, but can be so powerful. 
The budget has been delivered and as a community broadcaster in Australia, what does it mean to me?
I’m a strong believer in independent community broadcasting and I think the Swan/Rudd budget is going to shake things up for the community radio sector.
Firstly, the Australian Music Radio Airplay Project (AMRAP)
The Government will provide $2.4 million over four years to support the Australian Music Radio Airplay Project to help promote contemporary Australian bands and musicians. The project produces and distributes radio content and promotes Australian music as well as developing an online resource for community broadcasters, musicians, industry bodies and audiences to learn about emerging artists. -www.budget.gov.au
This is good to see, the AMRAP project has done good work over the last few years and it’s great to see that continue. Anything that helps to give Australian artists more airplay is a positive and the government did commit to this during the election campaign and have delivered.
The Community Broadcasting National Training Program -
The Government will provide $0.6 million in 2008‑09 to continue the community broadcasting National Training Program, which enables the community radio sector to plan and deliver accredited management and broadcasting skills training, particularly in regional, rural and remote Australia. The program also addresses the special training needs of radio for the print handicapped, Indigenous and ethnic community broadcasting. This maintains the level of funding provided in 2007‑08. - www.budget.gov.au
Great to see the continuation of this funding - Community radio has been delivering some important training and from what I’ve seen, much of this training has been quite useful in education. Many schools are now benefiting from including radio as part of their teaching - its an great way to engage disadvantaged kids, by helping them learn under a different medium to the typical textbook.
But the biggie is in digital radio…
I agree wholeheartedly with the government’s decision to delay the start of digital radio broadcasting…
The Government will seek to amend the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 to extend the legislated timetable for the commercial broadcasters to commence digital radio broadcasting from 1 January 2009 to 1 July 2009. - www.budget.gov.au
But, there seems to be no mention of funding to assist community radio in the transition to digital. The Howard Government had pledged to help fund the community radio infrastructure for digital radio, but it seems that the Rudd Government has backed out from the Howard government plan.
Community radio stations are not designed to be money-makers and in their strict licenses it is inherent that they are NOT commercially controlled/minded organisations. Thus, they are not the richest of organisations - Can community radio afford to be involved in digital radio without assistance? And what are the consequences of NOT getting involved?
Community television looks set to be killed off by Digital TV, with no funding or access to the digital spectrum, it looks like a dire situation for our community television friends.
Will the same happen to community radio as digital radio trucks on?
While you may not be a viewer or a listener of community media, take a moment to think about the people who do consume community media. They are those that are left out of commercial media, they are those who don’t fit the ratings hungry criteria of “sexy”. When a disabled person listens/watches a program for disabled people, they feel involved in society - they feel that they play a part in this world. When a gay person listens/watches the GLBT show - they are in a world where they are included. By killing off community media, we threaten further excluding those who are already downtrodden and mistreated.
So even if community media doesn’t mean anything, or relate to you - think about who it DOES help.
I hope community radio is somehow included in digital radio, because I truly believe that community radio has to the most to give this format. Please Mr. Rudd and Mr. Swan keep the voice of the forgotten and downtrodden alive in Australia.
UPDATE: Check out Creative Economy Online for an update on this situation, it looks like there will be no funding in 08/09 for Community Radio to join digital radio, but rather funding will be allocated in 09/10 - Still very interesting…
Okay, when you run one of these WordPress sites, you have to clear all of the comments on your site of any spam…
It interests me that 99% of the time, these spam comments are from insurance companies…
Therefore…I can only conclude…
Insurance companies = evil bastards…
It’s likely that as a consequence of extreme laziness on Sundays, I will post a music video that I really like…this week…
Sarah Blasko - Always Worth It
The clip just fits the song so well, take particular note to the lyrics:
Half forgotten things
In the depths of time they lie
With significance
Waiting for the simplest sign of life
See the evidence
That expense is part of life in time
Always worth it if only to realise
Not always perfect but somehow deserving of time
Disconnected things
You exist within a kind of truth
And the consequence
Is a consummated trial of fire
Always worth it if only to realise
Not always perfect but somehow deserving of time
You’ve no way out
No path in
Set on paper
Half in stone
You’re on your own
Always worth it if only to realise
Not always perfect but somehow deserving of time
Source: SarahBlaskoFan.org
Okay, so recently I’ve discovered the lovely Marieke Hardy her blog Reasons You Will Hate me is hilarious, and I think truly that she is the breath of fresh air that Triple J Breakfast needed!
I was thinking for a moment there, how can this woman get any better?
And then I read this: http://www.theage.com.au/news/tv–radio/bmarieke-hardyb-ibig-brotheri-my-secret-shame/2008/05/07/1210131049397.html
Oh shame! I share the very same Big Brother addiction as she…sad….very sad…but now I know I’m not alone.
Let’s face it - nothing compares to an top notch live performance. Live music done right is what makes music so special to me. Today I heard the near-perfect tones of Adelaide’s Vorn Doolette performing acoustically and wow was it a treat! Vorn recently won a Triple J Unearthed competition to visit Sydney and learn from some of Australia and the world’s top songwriters. Personally though, I don’t think he really needs it. Everytime I’ve heard him he has had an impeccable sense of melody and more recently has developed this wonderfully dark tone to his lyrics. He does it so well live, that his major challenge is then being able to take that into a recorded form. I look forward to seeing him take on that challenge!
Australian music sees some great live television performances (And I’m so glad that we have stations like Triple J, Channel V and Max to record quality Australian performers) and one of the best live performances I’ve ever seen is that of Bernard Fanning, Clare Bowditch (Her latest release “The Moon Looked On” is stunning) and Kasey Chambers performing “Watch Over Me” at the ARIAS in 2006. Unique Australian voices coming together in such a beautiful way, watch that performance below…
Well, this has been a rather scary week for me as a Media student.
In the news, there’s been nothing but reports about the death of journalism!
Just check out the most recent episode of MediaWatch - Breaking from their usual format, they reported on a recent conference looking at this very topic and in many ways it looks grim.
Most of the major newspapers around the world are struggling with the move to the internet, and just can’t figure out how to make money from it all. This means that soon enough, they just won’t be able to pay the journalists that write it all.
The real fear is that the quality of journalism will die. Less journalists, doing more work and under more stress.
Hopefully its not as bad as they say, but as a media student its certainly scary!
-JBro
It’s my ABC Wednesday night!
Sitting down with the olds (parents) and watching good old Aunty is a nice relaxing middle of the week.
What’s so good about it? Well, Spicks and Specks and then the IT Crowd right after each other? Amazing…
Other good Aunty stuff?
I love the Media Watch vodcast, its awesome!
IT must be run by a bunch of pyros, honestly…
People are only just getting over the whole “burning” CD’s thing…(Hey…it was quite traumatic the first time by brother said he was going to “burn” one of my favourite CD’s…he nearly got a black eye out of that one…)
And now there’s “Feedburning”?
I’ve spent the last hour or so “burning” a whole bunch of podcast feeds for the radio show I’m involved in and I trust that feedburning will actually DO something. The website I’m playing with is FeedBurner.com and it tells me that it’ll display my podcast in Itunes, Yahoo, search engines and the whole sha-bang. My big question is whether I’ve just wasted an hour, or whether it will actually help our podcast get some hits? Is FeedBurning really that effective? I’ll have to wait and see, although we can’t forget that the content has to be good in the first place!
Hopefully the Friday Sessions on the Range (my show) IS considered good content…I hope:P I had to plug it somewhere in this post 
-JBro
