Radio Adelaide

The History of Radio Adelaide
Radio Adelaide, then known as VL5UV, was the first public radio station in Australia, making its first broadcast in June 1972. At this stage its wavelength was off the AM band due to legal requirements. In March of 1974 it moved to 530 khz, later upgraded to 531 Khz on the AM band, where it has remained. The establishment of the station, under the aegis of the Department of Continuing Education, was made possible by a bequest to the University of $100,000 in 1970 from the estate of Kenneth Stirling. He was a graduate of Adelaide University who wished the money to be used for an educational initiative.

5UV was conceived as a direct educational outreach of the University of Adelaide. Lectures were recorded as they happened and rebroadcast. Specific courses were developed in which a weekly radio program was an essential part of the teaching, supplemented with brochures, tutorials and seminars. The later development by 5UV of more specifically radio focussed educational programs has been of significant impact on distance and further education in Australia.The decision of the University of Adelaide to reduce the Department of Continuing Education to Office status involved the granting of autonomy to 5UV.

The station was also active in the formation of other special interest radio stations in Adelaide. 5UV airtime was sublet to many non english language groups, who later went on to provide the nucleus for 5EBI. Services for the Print Handicapped, along interstate models, became a regular part of the station schedule until 5RPH was inaugurated. 5PBA, in the northern suburbs, grew from the Para Broadcasters access group. 5MMM, now 3d Radio, drew on the resources of 5UV in its initial stages.

Specialist services for older people became Over Sixties Radio, then Roundabout, Radio for the Third Age. University of Adelaide students began Student Radio, a late night campus oriented service. A close working relationship with the Elder Conservatorium of Music led to the recording and broadcasting of fine music performances. Other areas of specialist music were developed, including folk, jazz, blues and country, drawing on the record collections and interests of volunteer programmers.

The quality of training and experience available to volunteers at the station was quickly recognized as 5UV 'graduates' were employed by the ABC and the commercial networks. In 1996, 5UV Radio Adelaide became a Registered Training Organisation and hence able to provide Nationally Accredited Broadcast training.

The station was originally located in the Barr Smith Library complex of the University. It is now a street front facility at 228 North Terrace.

In late 2001 the Licence Area Plan for Adelaide from the Australian Broadcasting Authority finally announced approval for the long awaited conversion to FM. On October 1, 2001 the latest chapter in the life of Australia's first public broadcasting station began when it switched on to 101.5 MHz. On 1 January 2002 AM broadcasting ceased. As part of sweeping reform by the new manager Deb Welch, the station adopted a 2-part name change process. Radio 5UV is now known as Radio Adelaide, having completed an interim period known as 5UV Radio Adelaide.

The current hurdle facing the station's technical capability is acquiring equipment for high-power broadcasting. The licence granted to the station allows broadcasting at 20 Kw ERP, but our equipment provides a maximum of 2 Kw. We need to raise $100,000 for the upgrade - see the home page for more info on helping us out.

The History of Australian Radio

Early Days
We are able to 'listen' to the radio because the sounds made in one place are able to be transmitted to many other places through the use of electromagnetic radiation.

This phenomenon was first commercialised by the Italian Guillermo Marconi. He patented the process of wireless telegraphy and introduced systems that allowed the transmission of morse code (telegraphy) over the airwaves (wireless). The invention was mostly used to enable communication between ships and shore. The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 showed the usefulness of the new technology when the ship sent distress signals over the air. It didn't save the 1500 passengers unfortunately.

In Australia - a newly federated country - wireless telegraphy quickly came under the control of the new Federal Government through the Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1905. Since then broadcasting has remained the responsibility of federal governments. In this same year Australia's first two-way wireless telegraphy station was built at Queenscliff in Victoria (by Marconi's company).

Marconi was almost monopolising the industry worldwide with companies in Europe, the USA (later to be renamed the Radio Corporation of America - RCA - in 1919) and Australia. In Australia Marconi and its main competitor Telefunken amalgamated to form Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd. (AWA) in 1913.

The First World War
During the War (1914-1918) wireless telegraphy around the world came under the control of governments for security and strategic reasons. During this time the development of the technology was extended to allow the use of voice (radio telephony) through the development of the vacuum tube by de Forest and then Armstrong in the USA.

Up until then the invention was envisaged as being used to communicate from one point to another. In 1916 David Sarnoff of the Marconi Company in USA wrote a memo to his boss 'I have a plan that would make radio a household utility'. He was one of the first to see radio as a potential medium for communication from one point to many (broadcasting) and for entertainment and information as well as communication.

First Steps towards Broadcasting
Within two or three years there were hundreds of amateur broadcasters using the radio telephony medium to broadcast. In Australia for instance there were 900 such amateur users of the new invention. Most of these operations were very tentative affairs - single operators transmitting recordings and talking. The first "broadcast" in Australia was organised by George Fisk of AWA on 19th August 1919 where he arranged for the National Anthem to be broadcast from one building to another at the end of a lecture he'd given on the new medium to the Royal Society of NSW.

In the USA the contenders for first station include WGI (Medford Hillside, Mass., owned by the AMRAD receiver company, it first broadcast as 1XE); WHA (a college station in Madison, Winsconsin); WWJ (Detroit) and the ubiquitous KDKA which benefitted from having a massive publicity machine of its parent company, Westinghouse. In Canada, XHA (Montreal) insisted it was first. In the United Kingdom 2MT in Whittle went on air in 1922 and the British Broadcasting Company was incorporated in November of the same year. Its other station, 2LO in London, went on air in August that year.

The Sealed Set Scheme
The radio manufacturing industry in Australia, led by George Fisk of AWA, lobbied the Government for the introduction of radio broadcasting in these early years. In May 1923 the Government finally called a conference of the main players. This led to the sealed set regulations where stations could be licensed to broadcast and then sell sets to 'listeners-in'. The receiving device would be set to receive only that station. 2FC in Sydney was the first to be licensed on 1st July 1923 but its opponent 2SB (later to be called 2BL) was first to go to air officially starting on 23rd November that year. 3AR and 3LO went to air on 26th January and 13th October 1924 in Melbourne.

However the sealed set scheme wasn't taken to by listeners, only 1400 people took out sealed set licences in the first 6 months of 1924. It was quite easy to avoid the licence fee by building your own set or modifying one you'd bought to receive more than one station.

A and B Licences
The industry realized it had shot itself in the foot with the sealed set scheme. It lobbied the Government to introduce a two tiered system, the 'A' licences to be largely financed by listeners' licence fees imposed and collected by the Government and 'B' class licences to be offered to anyone else who wanted to have a go. The B stations would have to generate their own revenue through advertising. A class stations could advertise too but few did.

By July 1924 the Government accepted this compromise proposal. This system was an amalgam of the British system where the non-commercial BBC had a government-imposed monopoly and the USA where the free market was the driving force. (The first radio advertisement was on WEAF in New York in February 1922. A ten minute talk by the advertiser cost him $50 and recouped $27,000 in sales!).

The 'A' class stations were the original sealed set stations plus one in each other capital city - 2BL, 2FC, 3AR, 3LO, 7ZL, 5CL, 6WF.

By the end of 1924 the number of listener licences was close to 40,000. It doubled to 80,000 by the end of 1925. The two tier system was working.

The first 'B' class station on air was 2BE in November 1924. It went bust in 1929. So the oldest surviving 'B' class (commercial) station is 2UE which went on air on Australia Day 1925. South Australia's first stations were 5CL (A) - 20th November 1924 and 5DN (B)- 24th February 1925.

When the British Government nationalized radio in 1926 by buying out the British Broadcasting Company and forming the British Broadcasting Corporation the Australian Government held a Royal Commission into Wireless. The Government didn't immediately follow the British lead but did encourage the 'A' class stations to amalgamate in order to maximise efficiencies and maintain standards.

The Australian Broadcasting Company
In 1929 the Government did nationalize the transmission facilities and contracted the provision of programming to the Australian Broadcasting Company a consortium of entertainment interests. This company was nationalised in 1932 by the Australian Broadcasting Commission Act.

So in 1932 the two tier system was finalised; the national broadcaster, the ABC, with 12 stations and the commercial sector (with 43 stations).

Of interest, the ABC was initially to be allowed to broadcast advertisements but this was dropped from the final Bill. It was funded by radio listeners' licences. Licence fees for radio and TV were finally dropped in the seventies. ABC funding now comes from Federal Government appropriation.

It's worth noting that Australia was a leader in the use of short wave broadcasting to transmit overseas. In 1927 AWA conducted a series of transmissions to Britain. These regular broadcasts were heralded by a kookaburra's laugh - a practice that's still used by Radio Australia today. Radio Australia was formally incorporated as part of the ABC in 1939.

Frequency Modulation - Not!
In the USA Armstrong had invented FM broadcasting, a much superior medium in the early thirties. It was higher in fidelity, could broadcast in stereo and wasn't subject to electrical interference like the AM system. Armstrong was frustrated by David Sarnoff of RCA who had major investments in AM and by then television. He didn't want to tool up for a new method of radio broadcasting. However after much frustration FM was introduced in USA in the late thirties at the frequencies of 42 - 50 MHz. In the early forties RCA and other AM broadcasters realized that FM was going to take off. So they petitioned the FCC to utilize another part of the band (82 - 108 MHz. The FCC eventually accepted this argument based on rather tenuous technical grounds. This made 400,000 FM sets obsolete. By 1946 the second launch of FM was established. (Armstrong later committed suicide when Sarnoff destroyed his business and denied his patent income.)

In Australia experimental FM broadcasts were commenced in 1948. However after an Inquiry into FM in 1957, where little interest was shown, the Government authorised the use of the international VHF FM band for television in 1961.

The Golden Years of Radio
By the early 1940s the Australian radio broadcasting scene was established. There were about 130 commercial stations and a roughly equivalent number of ABC stations. The ABC had national commitments including news, education, parliamentary broadcasting, culture (including five full orchestras). The commercial stations were much more local and community-orientated in nature. Their programming was responsive to the local community (see later).

The forties and fifties were the golden years of radio. The regulatory body, the Australian Broadcasting Control Board, created in 1948, had been saying that there was no room for new stations on the AM band and FM had been given to television, so effectively no new competition came onto the scene.

Pressure for Change
In 1961 the experimental FM stations were closed down as the VHF band had been allocated to television. This led Dr. Neil Runcie in Sydney to form the Listener's Society of NSW which had as its major objective the establishment of subscriber-supported FM fine music stations. In the same year the University of NSW was given a licence under the Wireless and Telegraphy Act to broadcast lectures over a non-broadcast frequency VL-2UV.

These were two of the progenitors of a movement to provide more diversity in Australia's radio broadcasting. Ultimately this movement led to the establishment of the third tier of broadcasting in Australia, the public or community sector.

To understand the genesis of this movement it's necessary to look at Australia in the 1960s.

There was dissatisfaction with the Government in not introducing the quality of FM broadcasting. This emanated mainly from people who wanted fine music on the airwaves.

Secondly there were some Universities lobbying to be allowed to broadcast educational material (VL-2UV was already on-air but not on the broadcast band). This group was largely motivated by the Open University experience in the UK and the educational stations in the USA.

The third prong of this movement came from Australia's ethnic communities. Australia had undertaken the biggest program of immigration in the world after the Second World War. The country's population had almost doubled in 20 years. By the late sixties this large group of immigrants, many of them from non-English speaking backgrounds, was reaching political maturity. Ethnic leaders were critical of Australia's media which was then almost totally white anglo-saxon.

The radio industry was particularly bad in this respect. The ABC was very much caste in the BBC mould. The commercial sector was discovering the advantages of format programming and was slavishly following the youth generation programming developments of the American industry. Pop culture was just being invented.

So the ethnic communities were pushing for more access to the airwaves.

(The commercial sector previously had provided some ethnic programming on a user pays basis to the larger ethnic communities mainly Greek and Italian. In 1964 the Australian Broadcasting Control Board had allowed for up to 10% of broadcasting time to be in non-English languages. 2CH and 3XY in particular utilized this provision for revenue. As the commercial sector increasingly succumbed to the format programming concepts of the USA this outlet was gradually decreased until in 1972 2CH dropped its 17 ethnic programs altogether.)

The fourth group seeking change to the status quo was the politically active generation of the 'Vietnam' sixties. The desire for a more open media was exemplified by the draft resistors in Melbourne and Sydney that each mounted pirate broadcasts in the late sixties. In Brisbane too the limp response to the Springbok rugby tour demonstrations in 1971 by the mainstream media led students to look at forming their own radio station (ultimately 4ZZZ).

Each of these four different groups had one thing in common. They wanted access to the airwaves.

FM Again
The Australian Broadcasting Control Board held another inquiry into the introduction of FM broadcasting in 1971/72. This eventually recommended the introduction of FM but on the UHF band rather than the internationally used VHF band. Significantly the inquiry also recommended the introduction of public access broadcasting. The then Liberal Government accepted this report in October '72 but was evicted from power with the ascent of the Whitlam Labor Government on 3rd December that year.

The Whitlam years were characterised by radical change and political turmoil. The whole face of Australia, economically, but more importantly culturally, was changed in that period. Public broadcasting was introduced, but only after a lot of manoeuvring, obfuscation, duplicity and plain luck.

The commercial sector (as in 1957) wasn't interested in spending a lot of money on retooling for FM and it fought its introduction. So when FM was introduced at the same time as the introduction of public (community) broadcasting in 1972/75 it was ironic and perhaps fitting that the Labor Government prohibited the commercial stations from access to the new medium. The first use of FM in Australia was for public broadcasting - 2MBS and 3MBS - the fine music stations. The ABC entered the medium in 1976 with the establishment of ABC-FM based in Adelaide.

FM was eventually introduced on the VHF band - the internationally recognised FM band - rather than the UHF band as recommended by the Australian Broadcasting Control Board in 1972. This was a victory of common sense over technological ludditism. The ABCB had been in the pocket of the manufacturing industry which wanted to introduce FM on UHF. They would then be able to sell sets that were only usable in Australia. To this day we are still slowly removing television stations from the VHF band (Channels 3, 4, 5, 5A) to allow the full implementation of FM broadcasting in Australia.

The Advent of Public Broadcasting
5UV in Adelaide predates the MBS stations as Australia's first public station. It went to air in June 1972 just off the AM band. It converted to the AM band (530 kHz) in March 1974.

Public broadcasting as the third tier of broadcasting in Australia differs from the other two sectors through the community involvement in both the management and programming of the station. The 'community' here can be a geographically defined community or a community of interest (i.e. special interest - ethnic, educational, fine music, Aboriginal, Christian, etc.). Public broadcasters are non-profit and community owned. They don't receive government funding and are only allowed limited advertising.

Since the revolutionary Whitlam years public broadcasting has grown from 12 stations in 1975 (the Cass Dirty Dozen), to over 140 in 1994. It is now almost as big numerically as the other two sectors.

The Special Broadcasting Service
As mentioned earlier the ethnic communities of Australia were pushing for access to the airwaves throughout the early seventies. This lobbying assisted in the implementation of community broadcasting in the mid seventies. Ethnic community radio is a strong component of community radio in general with five full time ethnic community radio stations and about 45 others broadcasting some ethnic programming.

However, whilst this process was unfolding, a number of other approaches were also tried. The ABC had been encouraged by the Whitlam Labor Government to open an 'access' station in Melbourne in 1975 (at the same time as it opened 2JJ in Sydney). This station, 3ZZ, rapidly became a de facto ethnic broadcasting station. There was a lot of tension between the ABC bureaucracy and the ethnic communities in the early days of 3ZZ as the nexus between access broadcasting and ABC bureaucracy played itself out.

In 1975 Al Grassby, the colourful Minister for Ethnic Affairs, and later Consultant to the Government on ethnic issues, talked the Government into opening two experimental stations in Sydney and Melbourne to broadcast information to ethnic communities about Medicare. These stations, 2EA and 3EA, eventually stayed on air and when the ABC showed reluctance to take them on board as part of its charter, the Fraser Government in 1976 set up the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) to run the EA stations. Later SBS television also was established. The Fraser Government forced the ABC to close 3ZZ down in 1976.

Commercial FM
After realizing it had missed the boat with FM in the early seventies, the commercial radio sector pushed for access to FM. It wanted all its AM stations to have the right to simulcast on FM but this was not accepted.

Instead in 1980 the Government offered a limited number of FM licences (2 in Melbourne and Sydney and one each in each other capital city - the same as in 1924 when the 'A' class licences were first introduced!). These 'licences to print money' went to new players, including some eminent media people rather than the existing stations.

The first FM commercial stations (including SA FM in Adelaide) very quickly became profitable and held ratings leads in most markets. There was and still is a lot of discontent amongst the original AM stations.

After much lobbying, in 1980 the Government allowed a chosen few AM stations to convert to FM. The resultant bidding war to win the right to convert upset the economies of the commercial sector radically (e.g. 3KZ paid $30 million to convert, 5DN, $6 million). In fact the industry is still suffering the effects of this today. Through the latter part of the eighties the radio industry got caught up in the media buying madness that accompanied the prevailing entrepreneurial boom. Many stations changed hands. One outcome was the creation of two major networks on the FM band (Austereo and MMM) which are winning the ratings but encumbered with large debt to finance.

A New Act
Another feature of the eighties was economic rationalism - a concern for putting an economic value on everything. In broadcasting this meant seeing the broadcast spectrum not so much as a valuable community resource but more as an asset that had monetary value. This led to the FM auctions referred to above and also to a re-think of the fundamental philosophy of Broadcasting & Television Act which had originally been enacted in 1942. There had been major amendments to the Act in 1948 (to establish the Australian Broadcasting Control Board), 1956 (to introduce television), 1976 (to change the Australian Broadcasting Control Board to the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal and allow for introduction of FM and public broadcasting) and 1977, so it was well and truly time to give the Act a thorough refurbishment. But the resulting Broadcasting Services Act promulgated in October 1992 took the concept of economic rationalism - free market forces - to the extreme. The new Act is deregulatory in tone. A lot of the community service orientation of earlier legislation is now replaced with a philosophy of deregulation and economic rationalism. For instance the requirement for radio stations to play a percentage of Australian music has gone. And many of the Standards of broadcasting are replaced by industry generated self-regulation codes.

The major change though has been the introduction of six classes of broadcasting licence:

(a) The National Sector (The ABC & SBS)
(b) The Commercial Sector
(c) The Community Sector
(d) Subscription Broadcasting
(e) Subscription Narrowcasting
(f) Open Narrowcasting

The three new class licences (d, e and f) are available 'over the counter' and are not subject to any public interest or commercial viability criteria.

The word 'Services' in the new Act is a clue to the Government's intention to make the new legislation technology-free, to concentrate on the service rather than the mode of delivery. However this is not as easily done as said as can be seen in the ongoing Pay TV debate.

Another significant change introduced by the new Act is the creation of the Australian Broadcasting Authority which takes over the planning and regulation roles of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal. Although the Act is deregulatory in emphasis the Australian Broadcasting Authority is required to keep a watching brief on the self-regulation of the industry and to manage the allocation of frequencies to new players.

In line with the philosophy that the radio spectrum is no longer a scarce resource and that market forces should reign, the Trade Practices Commission will now be expected to play a role in regulating the industry. For instance the TPC stopped Austereo buying MMM in 1993 when the MMM network went into receivership, the reason being that such a deal would limit the competitiveness of the industry. (Village Roadshow eventually bought MMM.)

Another change introduced with the BSA is that commercial radio station proprietors can now own two stations in each market. (Jeremy Cordeaux now owns 5AD and 1323 AM in Adelaide.)

New commercial licences will be available - after the planning period - to the highest bidder.

Narrowcasting
The new narrowcasting class licences allow for services that have a limited appeal in terms of period of broadcast, type of service, etc. The word indicates the nature of the service. These licences are (will be) available over the counter. Already a large number of tourist information services, horse racing stations and other narrowcast services have been licensed. But the floodgates have yet to open. The Australian Broadcasting Authority is conducting a planning prioritization process that will take until 1996 to determine which frequencies are available for what services. After that there are sure to be a lot more narrowcasting services licensed. There already have been about 300 licences granted.

The word 'open' narrowcasting signifies that the service is openly receivable, i.e. on the broadcast band with no encryption. Subscription narrowcasting services will be encrypted or require the purchase of some sort of black box to pick them up.

Narrowcasting services are not constrained by the advertising or other restrictions of the Act that apply to commercial and community broadcasting.

One of the conundrums arising out of the new Act is the blurring of the difference between some types of community licence and open narrowcasting. Already a number of open narrowcast licences have been issued to groups which would otherwise have sought community licences. There is a real Pandora's Box in this category of licence. Already the Australian Broadcasting Authority is finding it hard going to define what differentiates a narrowcaster from a broadcaster

A History of Community Broadcasting

Here is a rundown of the early history of Community Radio broadcasting in Australia. These are from a paper "The Social and Political forces that led to the Development of Public Radio in the 1960's", written by Dr. Jeff Langdon in 1995.

Introduction
This paper looks at the development of community radio in Australia in the sixties and seventies. This development created a third tier of broadcasting in Australia, adding to the national (ABC) and commercial networks. As such it was unique in the world.

Context
Before considering the disparate components that eventually congealed into the movement for access to the airwaves, it's necessary to understand the historical context.

Radio broadcasting as a social phenomenon developed in the years after World War One out of a technology that was initially developed primarily for site to site communication - wireless telegraphy.

We're celebrating this year the centenary of the first communication between one point and another in 1865 by Guillermo Marconi. Marconi, the son of a rich Italian father and Scottish mother, had the resources and the entrepreneurial flair to realize the commercial potential of wireless telegraphy. By the end of the century Marconi had set up a series of companies around the world which provided ship to shore communication. A celebrated incident in 1912 saw the SS Titanic use Marconi equipment to put out a distress call. A nearby ship was able to save some of the passengers.

It was David Sarnoff, an employee of the American arm of the Marconi empire - later called Radio Corporation of America (RCA) - that was the first to appreciate the potential of wireless telegraphy for mass communication; for entertainment and information, i.e. for radio broadcasting.

By the mid twenties radio stations were being introduced by the manufacturing industry throughout the world.

It's an important point to note that broadcasting was very much an industry-driven phenomenon rather than consumer-driven. The makers of the radio sets and the transmitters generally owned the radio stations and set the tone of the industry.

This was especially so in Australia, where AWA (formed in 1913 when Marconi and Telefunken merged) led industry lobbying of the newly established Federal Government to formulate the policy they wanted.

The other major player in the development of broadcasting in Australia was government. Government quickly realized that the broadcasting spectrum should be regulated, that the spectrum should remain in public ownership - like the roads and the water supply (until recently!).

These two factors - the manufacturing industry and government - controlled policy formulation in the formative years of broadcasting.

In the UK, government influence extended to the delivery of services with the nationalization of the radio stations themselves.

In the USA, the industry maintained control of stations where free enterprise led to privately-owned "commercial" stations being the model adopted.

In Australia the industry got the early break but by 1929 the government leant towards the UK model. It was too late to nationalize the whole industry, however, and Australia ended up with the "best of both worlds" parallel system of a national network alongside a commercial network.

And so it was. There was little community influence over the system. This remained the case right through until the sixties when four separate consumer-led movements developed which would end up changing the structure and delivery of broadcasting in this country.

These four were Frequency Modulation/ Fine Music, Ethnic Access, Educational Broadcasting and Community/Political Access.

(Aboriginal Broadcasting developed a bit later than the above but is now seen as an integral component of the community broadcasting movement. However it is not discussed in this paper other than to mention that the first Aboriginal language broadcasts occurred in Alice Springs in 1979 when an employee of the Northern Territory Education Department Chris Myefski approached a local Aboriginie, John Macumba, and together they talked the local commercial station 8HA into giving them half an hour per week. CAAMA was formed out of this initiative the next year.)

FM - Frequency Modulation/Fine Music
The extent of the influence that industry and government (the bureaucracy at least) had over policy development is demonstrated in the story of the introduction of FM broadcasting in Australia.

FM broadcasting was invented in the early thirties by David Armstrong in the USA. He in fact opened FM stations in America in 1939. By the start of World War Two there were 400,000 sets in use. The giant RCA Corporation led by Armstrong's nemesis David Sarnoff resisted FM. RCA lacked the critical patents to control the industry. It managed to delay the general introduction of FM by conning the regulators into changing the FM band from the 42-50 MHz band that Armstrong's services were using to the 88-108 MHz band we now use. This happened in 1945. Armstrong eventually committed suicide in despair.

In 1946 the PMG in Australia approved some experimental FM services in four capital cities using ABC programming.

In 1957 the Australian Broadcasting Control Board (precursor to the ABT) conducted an enquiry into the possible establishment of FM in Australia. It restricted its consultation to the industry and unsurprisingly found that there was no evidence of a need for FM in Australia!

In 1960 the same body dominated by engineers and bureaucrats from the industry recommended that the international FM band be utilized in Australia for television. The Huxley Commission in 1961 accepted this view and the government closed down the experimental FM services. Everyone expected that to be that.

However some consumers weren't satisfied. Dr. Neil Runcie and Murray Low at the University of NSW formed the Listeners Society of NSW in 1961 in order to lobby for the introduction of FM broadcasting.

In Melbourne that year Brian Cabena wrote to The Age calling for a similar lobby group to be formed in that city.

These early lobbyists wanted FM broadcasting introduced for its superior listening qualities - high fidelity, stereo and low interference. But also by establishing consumer-driven groups they moved the policy formulation debate for the first time into the public arena. They also wanted to see public input into the operation of new radio services.

That was the genesis of a push for community access to the airwaves.

By the late sixties there were Music Broadcasting Societies (MBS) established in both Melbourne and Sydney. Among these early pioneers were Peter Pockley, Michael Law, Max Keogh and Trevor Jarvie. They proposed the establishment of fine music FM stereo stations which would be run by and for the listeners. The listener-supported concept had had some success in the USA with the Pacifica stations and a few educational FM stations.

In the meantime the FM band had been partly taken over by television services (Channels 3, 4, 5, and 5A). The industry technocrats responded to the push for the introduction of FM by recommending that FM in Australia be introduced on a completely different band. This was another example of the manufacturing industry trying to set the policy agenda. If Australia alone in the world introduced FM on the UHF band rather than the VHF band, Australian radio set manufacturers (specifically AWA) would have had the game to themselves.

Incredibly the government bought this argument and in the dying days of the McMahon Liberal Government they agreed to introduce FM but on the wrong band.

Then the Whitlam Government came to power.

As with so many other areas of policy, the Whitlam government challenged the technocrats and bureaucrats. In subsequent enquiries the MBS Societies, assisted covertly by some key Whitlam-sympathetic bureaucrats, most importantly Geoff Evans, made mincemeat of the of ABCB engineers' arguments.

By 1974 sanity had prevailed and the government introduced FM on the internationally recognized VHF band. More importantly the notion of consumer control had also been established. The idea of broadcasting services that were run for and by the community - i.e. public broadcasting as it was called by then - had established a beach-head in policy development.

This, along with the antagonism that the industry, the commercial broadcasting industry especially, had for the new legislators, meant that FM in Australia was pioneered by public broadcasters. On 15th December 1974 2MBS-FM went to air.

It wasn't until 1976 that the ABC got onto FM. By the late seventies the commercial radio industry had realised its grave mistake and belatedly moved to get onto the FM band. In 1980 the first commercial FM services opened up but by then FM was dominated by public radio.

There are now 140 public (now called community) licences in Australia, the vast majority on the FM band. The ABC has ABC-FM, JJJ, some Radio National repeaters and some Second Regional Radio Services on FM. SBS has a national network on FM and there are about twenty commercial FM licences in metropolitan areas. Many more commercial FM services are now opening up in regional areas.

But the establishment and development of FM in Australia will always be seen as synonymous with the emergence of public broadcasting.

Ethnic Broadcasting
The second major campaign that sought to influence broadcasting policy in Australia can be broadly called "ethnic".

Australia imported large numbers of NESB immigrants after World War Two as cheap labour. By the sixties these people were reaching political and social maturity. They had bought houses in the suburbs, their kids were at state schools and they realised they had a political voice.

One of the questions that interested them was why the media in Australia still only reflected the anglo-celtic view of the world. One arm of the media slavishly copied the English imperialist BBC model whilst the other increasingly mimicked the American world view. Why was it not possible for some of the culture and information from their world to be expressed over the airwaves.

As with the introduction of FM this push came from a community perspective - a community of interest.

The commercial sector had provided some ethnic broadcasting in the fifties (usually for a fee) although the government had legislated to limit the amount of NESB broadcasting to 2.5% in 1952! Later this rule was relaxed and by 1964 stations like 2CH in Sydney and 3XY in Melbourne had considerable ethnic broadcasting.

However as commercial radio became more competitive and format-driven, the amount of ethnic broadcasting decreased until in 1972 there were only 36 hours in six languages of NESB broadcasting in the country.

And of course the ABC hardly recognised Australia as a cultural influence on its broadcasting policies; ethnic broadcasting was, and still is, anathema to the ABC.

So ethnic leaders too looked to the concept of a new public sector of broadcasting to satisfy their access needs.

In 1974 the Whitlam government's Media Department put forward a couple of proposals for establishing ethnic-only radio stations. In fact the officer who had the temerity to suggest this was, and is, Michael Thompson, current General Manager of the CBAA!

By March '75 ethnic community access programming had been accepted on Adelaide's education station 5UV and the government's Special Consultant on Ethnic Affairs Al Grassby had got approval to establish two temporary ethnic stations to be used for a limited time to promote and explain the government's new Medicare legislation to NESB communities.

These stations, 2EA and 3EA, were licensed to individuals and run initially largely by volunteers. They went to air in June '75. In fact Micheal Thompson was manager of these stations for a time.

In a related experiment the ABC was licensed in 1975 to run two experimental stations - 2JJ in Sydney as a youth music station and 3ZZ in Melbourne as an access station. Most of the access that occurred on 3ZZ throughout 1975 and '76 was ethnic so 3ZZ came to be seen as an ethnic access station.

Ethnic community groups in Brisbane and Adelaide emerged as part of the new push for community access stations. When 3ZZ was closed by the Fraser Government in 1977 the ethnic communities then switched to the push for a similar station in Melbourne.

After Fraser came to power in December '75 the EA experiments, initially operating as quasi-community stations, were offered to the ABC which typically dithered. Fraser lost patience and eventually the Special Broadcasting Service was established in November '77 as a statutory authority. Government involvement in ethnic broadcasting was entrenched.

The community push though was successful as part of the overall campaign for access and in 1979 4EB went to air. 5EBI followed shortly afterwards. Many other community stations now provide ethnic access programming. In fact the number of hours of ethnic community broadcasting is in excess of 800 hours per week around the country, far in excess of that provided by SBS's stations (and at a fraction of the cost).

In August 1989 3ZZZ finally got licensed and went to air - a daughter to 3ZZ twelve years after the original station's demise.

Educational Broadcasting
Ironically, of the four independent campaigns for access to the airwaves, the educational push bore the most fruit more quickly. Ironically, because this movement was, of the four, the least connected with the access and participation philosophies.

The idea of using radio as an extension to educational programs at University had been around since 1961 when VL-2UV at the University of NSW went 'on-air'. Technically 2UV wasn't a broadcasting station (being way off the broadcast band) and its programming was strictly didactic.

In the USA Universities and Colleges had been putting educational programs on the air since the early sixties. In Australia Armidale and ANU followed NSW's lead in the mid sixties with lower power 'stations' broadcasting to students.

At Adelaide the vision was a bit broader. The Adult Education Department had been trying to get funding to establish an educational station from 1966. It was only an anonymous grant of $100,000 in 1970 that spurred the University on. A certain amount of back door negotiation saw 5UV go to air in June 1972. At that stage 5UV wasn't significantly different from the other non-broadcast, didactic models but by 1974 when the MBS stations were 'licensed' 5UV was moving to the access and participation model that was to characterise public broadcasting. So June 28, 1972 is, somewhat erroneously, celebrated as the birthday of public broadcasting in Australia.

Community Access
The fourth movement striving to create a new style of broadcasting in Australia in the late sixties was characterised by the twin notions of access and participation. These came to be seen as the essential criteria that differentiates community/public broadcasting from the other two tiers.

As mentioned in the historical sketch at the beginning of this paper, broadcasting policy in Australia was led by industry and government imperatives. It was only in the sixties that the notion of the consumer or the broader community having a say started to be put forward.

The climate of political unrest in the late sixties was the perfect incubator for the community access cause. By way of example in 1971 students at Melbourne University set up a pirate radio station in the Union building and broadcast anti-government messages on the self styled '3DR' (Draft Resister). It was only on air for a few hours before Federal Police broke the barricades and confiscated the transmitting equipment. Hard to believe these days!

And in 1971 students in Brisbane were so concerned about biased and indifferent media coverage of the Springbok tour that they contemplated setting up a pirate station too. This group ultimately went on to form 4ZZZ. Jim Beatson currently working at the CBAA was intimately involved with the creation of 4ZZZ.

The advent of the Whitlam Government on 3rd December 1972 is seen as the spark that lit so many community-orientated ideas. This is a bit of a myth in the case of community radio as so much work had been done by all four movements by the end of 1972 that the introduction of public broadcasting was seen as inevitable. By June 1972, for instance, the ABCB's report on FM broadcasting had recommended the introduction of some form of public broadcasting.

In fact, although the Whitlam administration supported the introduction of public broadcasting and worked actively towards it, it was so antagonistic to the bureaucracy and so accident-prone that it's a miracle that public broadcasting emerged out the other end intact. A number of Senate Committees, Independent Commissions and Working Parties all revisited the basic philosophical question and redesigned models on its implementation.

To be fair to the Whitlam Government, the ABCB, still dominated by industry interests, was just as antagonistic back and it was only some clever backroom work by people like Geoff Evans that saved public broadcasting (and FM on the VHF band) in Australia.

By 1974 with a couple of elections already behind it and still with a hostile Senate, the government determined to introduce public licences using the Wireless & Telegraph Act. The MBS stations in Melbourne and Sydney were 'licensed' this way. 5UV's broadcasts were similarly legitimised.

There were active political groups in Melbourne (the Community Radio Federation and the Alternative Radio Association), Canberra and Sydney. These met in Canberra on 20th April 1974. About 80 people attended.

In July 1974 the Department held a seminar on the future of public broadcasting. They had an infamous secret Document J which set out this future even before the conference started. The existence of Document J was exposed in the newspaper the morning of the conference. It must have been a pretty tense meeting. The next day the proponents of public broadcasting met and established the CBAA.

The rest of 1974 was frenetic with lobbying, planning, submissions, meetings, as the various groups sought to get its particular vision of 'public broadcasting' into favour with the government. As with everything during the Whitlam years it was chaotic but exciting.

It's interesting to note in passing that in the same time frame twelve community access video centres were opened around the country with little of the machination and fighting that was occurring in community radio. Broadcasting licences weren't up for grabs there.

It was a very political and ideological struggle in Melbourne. In early 1975 when the ABC was granted a licence for an access station the Community Radio Federation attempted to establish the notion of true access but when it hit the ABC bureaucracy brick wall it withdrew and concentrated its efforts in promoting true community access stations.

As '75 rolled on the new Minister for the Media, Moss Cass, realised he was running out of time with the Whitlam Government struggled from crisis to crisis. He managed, against advice from the Attorney General's and PMG Departments, to get Cabinet approval for twelve licences. The original nineteen suggestions had had to be whittled down to twelve, each associated with a tertiary educational institution, in order to get the approval.

On 11th November Whitlam was sacked. The caretaker Fraser Government was bound by convention to implement existing policy. Cass had acted just in time. Even so the new Acting Minister for the Media, Peter Nixon, hesitated. It was only heavy lobbying by Robyn Mitchell at Bathurst CAE and Ivan Hincks at Lismore CAE, both in marginal Country Party seats, that convinced Nixon to sign the licence permits.

The dye was set and public broadcasting proceeded under the new Fraser Liberal Government. The original Cass Dozen, along with the pre-existing MBS stations, 5UV and 3CR (which had been licensed as a 'restricted' commercial station) were joined by other stations in the next few years.

It took until 1978 under the new Minister for Posts and Telecommunications, Tony Staley, before public broadcasting was put on a proper legislative framework.

Conclusion
Public broadcasting has grown spectacularly since 1978. There are now 140 licensed stations covering a range of specialist areas - education, ethnic, fine music, aboriginal, Christian, etc. as well as many geographic community stations which broadcast a diverse range of programming covering all of the above.

Issues
Amongst the many models for public broadcasting being tossed around in the early '70s one that was pushed by both interest groups and elements within the government, was for government funding of public stations. The more radical political groups such as the Community Radio Federation saw this as just one more control mechanism that government could exert on community radio. But also expediency saw the initial proponents of public broadcasting perhaps too readily accept a final model that precluded both government support and advertising as means of funding public broadcasting. As a consequence some assert that public broadcasting has never realised its potential. So much creative energy is used in surviving and so little on good broadcasting.

The notion of access too is problematic. Whilst it's politically correct to give all comers within your community of interest access to the airwaves, it doesn't always make for effective broadcasting. To be effective, broadcasting must convey a message clearly. And it must reach significant numbers of listeners. Unfortunately, people's listening habits have been 'educated' over the past fifty years to the point that they don't actively seek out interesting and entertaining 'programs' any more (as they would with television). They seek out like-minded stations. As a result much of the information being conveyed by community radio stations is reaching only a small clique of converts. If the aim of the exercise is to change people's views through education and information public broadcasting is sadly failing.

In the sixties the nascent public broadcasting movement was at the forefront of technological policy development. It was instrumental in getting FM stereo broadcasting introduced into Australia. Thirty years later technology is changing more quickly than it can be assimilated. The community sector is no longer part of the policy debate on issues such as digital audio, multimedia, cable systems, etc. Because of the convergence of technologies and the increasing dominance of the sector by fewer and bigger media companies, the future for community broadcasting is problematic.

Chronology of the Birth of Public/Community Radio in Australia

1961 - University of NSW licensed to broadcast, under the Wireless Telegraphy Act, postgraduate education courses, with no music, just off the AM band on VL2UV. First non-commercial, non-ABC radio station in Australia.
1962 - RMIT Campus station 3ST, run by students and funded by Union & SRC. This station did not need a licence because it was on cable only at the campus.
1965 - Radio Disc Jockey (RDJ) was set up, originally to make tapes of music to be played in Old People's Homes, but when one of the group had a brother conscripted to fight in the Vietnam War the group changed its plans and sent taped programmes to cheer up the troops fighting in Vietnam. This group later started Sydney suburban station 2RDJ-FM.
April 1970 - Radio UNE Campus Radio Armidale, by SRC on a closed circuit. This station did not need a licence because it was on cable only at the campus.
1971 - 3DR Radio Draft Resister set up at Melbourne Uni. but ILLEGAL. This station was jammed by the government and removed because it was broadcasting on the air-waves without a licence. (The government also didn't like its programming but that was not the legal reason for getting rid of the station.)
1971 - 3PR People's Radio set up at Monash Uni. but ILLEGAL. This station was jammed by the government and removed because it was broadcasting on the air-waves without a licence. (The government also didn't like its programming but that was not the legal reason for getting rid of the station.)
June, 1972 - University of Adelaide Department of Continuing Education commenced broadcasting (licence originally granted in 1970) under the Wireless Telegraphy Act, continuing education material, restricted to 12 hours per week with no music, just off the AM band on VL5UV. Both Jim Warburton, head of the Department of Continuing Education and Keith Conlon, the manager of VL5UV wanted to expand the station's programming to something more akin to public/community broadcasting, but they were not licensed to do so. Dr Gunn, a South Australian MP even asked in Parliament why the station should not be expanded to be allowed to play music. However, until the approval was given for some of the restrictions to be lifted, it could not really be described as a public/community broadcaster. It did not have community access or ethnic programs.
October, 1972 - The government accepted the principle of public/community broadcasting in parliament, when it accepted the 'Red Report' prepared by the Australian Broadcasting Control Board. The Broadcasting and Television Act did not cater for this innovation so no stations could be established.
1 December, 1973 - The Salvation Army in Coffs Harbour commenced broadcasting, having received approval for a subscription cable radio station (which did not need to comply with the Broadcasting and Television Act), Dynamic Radio CHY, which was licensed to give high school students the experience of producing community programming, both for the benefit of the students as an activity and also to provide a much needed local service for Coffs Harbour, where there had previously been no radio Now we are accepting a 'technology neutral' approach to the sector, it is about time that CHY was acknowledged as the first to produce legal community programming. This service was so popular, since it was the only service in Coffs Harbour, that their sponsorship announcements were fully booked up.
23 September, 1974 - Cabinet gave approval for the first experimental FM licences under the Wireless Telegraphy Act, with restrictions, for fine music stations, 2MBS-FM and 3MBS-FM in Sydney and Melbourne. At the same time it gave approval for VL5UV to be moved onto the AM band, renamed 5UV, and given a licence under the Wireless Telegraphy Act with restrictions similar to those of 2MBS-FM and 3MBS-FM, when the licence was renewed in February, 1975.
15 December, 1974 - 2MBS-FM started broadcasting as a fine music station, at noon from Alexander St, Crows Nest. It was the first FM public broadcasting station in Australia. 3MBS-FM experienced some technical difficulties and did not commence until July, 1975.
February, 1975 - VL5UV transferred to the AM band, was renamed 5UV and was allowed to broadcast community programming.
3 March, 1975 - 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.
Although still at an experimental level, with no proper legislation to issue legitimate public broadcasting licences (which were not to be issued until 1979, after Minister Tony Staley's famous speech on public broadcasting guidelines 5 April, 1978) the third sector of broadcasting, public/community broadcasting, was now launched.

Special thanks to Phoebe Thornley for the above information.