Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, I present the committee’s report entitled Tuning in to community broadcasting, together with the minutes of proceedings and evidence received by the committee.

Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper.

by leave—On behalf of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, I am pleased to present this report on community broadcasting in Australia. This is the second and final report for the committee’s inquiry into community broadcasting.

Community broadcasting adds diversity to the media landscape in Australia. The committee recognises the value that the community broadcasting sector contributes to Australian society. The committee was thoroughly impressed by the quality of programming produced by broadcasters and the dedication and commitment shown by the sector’s 20,000-plus volunteers. However, there are aspects of the community broadcasting sector that could be improved—in particular, the management and governance of stations. There were many complaints about the allocation of licences and the operation of some stations at the exclusion of others. Getting the governance right is a key step in ensuring that we maintain a robust and vibrant network of financially sound not-for-profit stations with a committed community audience rather than occupational therapy for a limited number of community members who enjoy broadcasting.

Community broadcasters transmit on valuable spectrum that could be otherwise hired out to commercial users. The public policy reasons for reserving spectrum for community broadcasting have more to do with the communities the broadcasters serve than anything done in the stations themselves. The success of community broadcasters can be measured by station ratings, financial liquidity and the ability to plan for the replacement of equipment needed to broadcast in the modern environment without waiting on uncertain government funding. Most government funding to the general broadcasting sector is ad hoc funding for equipment replacement. Stations are grateful to receive funding once or twice every three years and generally do not count on the government for station operating costs.

The focus of this inquiry has been to support the sector’s independence, promote diversity and ensure the success of community broadcasters, particularly as they face some significant hurdles in the future. The committee has made a number of recommendations addressing the need for increased government funding to community broadcasters—both ongoing funding and short-term funding for technical upgrades. However, these increases must be accompanied by a greater level of business acumen, improved management and financial accountability by community broadcasters.

The report recommends an increase of $10 million in core funding, which will primarily fund station manager positions. Although the Australian government’s contribution to the sector has been significant, the committee feels that a substantial boost in core funding, with annual indexed increases, will improve management by continuity of CEOs who do not have as a first priority the fundraising for their own salaries, allowing them to instead focus on station management, greater diversity and community inclusion rather than exclusion. The funding for paid station managers will result in better management practices and should be available to stations on a competitive grant process, which would result in some stations having a manager for two days a week, or three days a week in more remote or smaller areas, and others having two or three station managers.

The report also recommends an increase in targeted funding, primarily to assist in the replacement of station equipment and infrastructure. The committee believes that stations should not rely on funding in the long term for the replacement of equipment. Once current equipment is brought up to speed for the digital age, this funding should cease. The committee’s governance recommendations should see an increased level of effective station management, including better financial and forward planning, reducing the reliance on government for equipment replacement. A significant boost in funding for business management training will also make a great contribution to effective governance in the sector. The report makes several other key recommendations on regulation, sponsorship, transmission fees and copyright issues.

While community radio is a vibrant sector, community television currently faces a crisis with no security of access to digital spectrum or option for simulcast. These issues were addressed in the first report of this inquiry which was released in February 2007. The committee, along with the community television broadcasters and viewers, anxiously awaits the minister’s response to that report. The committee considers it will be the death knell for community television if it does not gain access to digital spectrum before the end of 2007. Again, the committee strongly urges the Australian government to implement the recommendations of the first report for this inquiry.

I thank the members of the committee for their dedication to the inquiry. The members of the committee showed unified support for the report. I also thank the committee secretariat, particularly Anthony Overs and Anna Dacre, for their counsel, assistance and patience throughout the inquiry process. In conclusion, I would like to thank the many individuals and organisations who provided evidence to this inquiry through submissions or by appearing before the committee. I commend this report to the House.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—Thanks to the information in this report, we can see clearly that the sheer size and independent structure of the community broadcasting sector makes a significant contribution to diversity in our media landscape, particularly given that Australia has one of the highest concentrations of media ownership and control in the world. It was good to be involved in a report which paints such a good quality picture of such an important sector.

The committee chair, the member for Lindsay, has already thanked the secretariat. I would like to agree with her remarks that the quality of the work for this report has been exceptional—as it always is with the secretariat of our committee. I would also like to thank the 131 individuals and organisations who made submissions to the inquiry and all those who attended the public hearings in Alice Springs, Melbourne and Canberra.

According to a McNair Ingenuity Research survey conducted in 2006, more than seven million Australians, or 45 per cent of people aged over the age of 15, listen to community radio in an average month. In an average week, 25 per cent of people over the age of 15, or over four million people, tune in to community radio. Of the seven million listeners who tune in each month, 34 per cent do not listen to any commercial radio at all; community radio is their only source of radio. Also, the number has increased between the two surveys conducted by McNair Ingenuity Research in 2004 and 2006. The number of people listening has risen by seven per cent.

The sector is served by 358 current community stations, 80 remote Indigenous broadcasters and 36 holders of current temporary licences, who are collectively serving a diverse audience that covers all adult age groups—although, interestingly, 55 per cent of the audience is male and 45 per cent is female. The stations, on average, receive about 12 per cent of their total income from grants—state, federal and local—excluding Indigenous grants through ATSIC. Some, of course, receive more than others.

Community radio stations are as diverse as the communities that they serve, and the issues that they raised in their submissions and at the public hearings were also diverse. But the issue of management came up over and over again in many different ways. Of the 14 recommendations made by the committee—which concern management, training, increases in funding, affordable access to transmitters, clarifying the guidelines for marketing on air, and amendments to the Copyright Act to improve services for the print handicapped—four relate specifically to management, and they are quite important for the future of the sector.

The first recommendation suggests that a guiding template for the structure of boards be created in consultation with the industry. There was considerable input from stations regarding difficulties they had had from time to time with their overarching structure. There is also a recommendation involving $500,000 per year for four years for the development and delivery of training materials that focus on management. Again, one of the issues raised over and over again was that community radio depends very much on volunteers and that the skill in management varies greatly from station to station. Another recommendation requires that the management training be incorporated as part of the licence renewal process. Also, it is recommended that the Community Broadcasting Foundation take into account when disbursing funds the effect of management business planning and the accountability of the stations to the communities they serve.

These first four recommendations add some management burden to stations, but it is offset by a fifth recommendation which represents an increase in core funding of $10 million with indexed annual increases specifically for the funding of station manager positions. It is recognised by the committee that not every community station chooses to have paid staff—some are entirely voluntary—but others have a mix of paid staff and voluntary labour and have been talking for many years about the difficulty of focusing on longer term planning when their volunteers and their paid staff are so involved in the day-to-day operation of a station.

In addition, there is a recommendation for $5 million per year, indexed and continuing for four years, to help with the backlog of equipment that needs upgrading. Again, stations that have been in operation for many years have quite a backlog, and this $5 million per year for the next four years only is designed to help fix that backlog.

The report indicates that the expectation is that improvements in management and the additional funding for management and business planning will result in better planning of infrastructure upgrades so that perhaps in the future the backlog will not be as great. It remains to be seen whether a sector which historically serves its community to the end of its funding will in fact manage over time to put more money into the future of the station rather than the needs of the day. Mind you, I would have to say that the fact that community radio has served the needs of the day so well is one of the reasons that it has survived so well.

On the whole, there are some very good things in the report for the community sector—some much-needed additional training for management and for equipment—which the committee hopes will see the community sector remain in good stead in the future.

Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does the member for Lindsay wish to move a motion in connection with the report to enable it to be debated on another occasion?

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House take note of the report.

The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.