Supporting Community Media
The Greens are proud supporters of community radio and TV, upon which millions of Australian rely: each month, 10 million Australians enjoy community radio and 3.7 million watch community TV.
Our Support Community Media plan will invest an additional $27m in our community broadcasters so they can provide more skills, training, equipment and Australian content.
Australian music & content
The Australian Music Radio Airplay Project (AMRAP) distributes and promotes Australian music to 1500 broadcasters and 300 community radio stations. It helps get Australian music, including live recordings, onto the airwaves by forging agreements with over 3,000 Australian musicians, including unsigned artists, and over 100 record labels. We'll provide secure funding each year for AMRAP to make sure musicians and listeners get what they need.
Our $7m per year Content Creation Fund will support further innovative programming, allowing community producers and musicians to create and distribute innovative content.
Training
22,000 Australians volunteer each year at their community radio or TV station. We'll put an additional $2m into their training, to provide transferable skills in Australia's digital economy in broadcasting technology, spoken and written communication, leadership and governance.
Rural and regional
70% of community broadcasters are located in Australia's rural and regional areas and 34% of these provide the only local content available. We'll invest $12m each year in helping the Community Broadcasting Foundation support critical areas of need in regional Australia, including Indigenous broadcasters.
Digital content
The digital switch over and the NBN are both enormous opportunities to create and share Australian content, however, there is also a risk that high production costs will see overseas content dominating our airwaves and screens. Our plan includes:
- $1.4m each year to continue and further extend community radio's transition across to the digital stream, including in regional Australia
- $4m per year for a Digital Hub Infrastructure Fund to establish digital hubs that help local community broadcasters leverage the NBN and support free-to-air digital services in multiple platforms.