Changing listening habits of Australians are leading to a rethink of how to make sure free-to-air radio stays free and accessible to everyone, especially our communities.
Audiences are increasingly listening to radio through internet connected devices such as smart speakers in the home or smart dashboard devices in modern cars. This brings new challenges for radio stations to find their audience, in comparison to a traditional radio where listeners only have to tune the dial.
In the digital marketplace, your radio station is competing with a range of listening and viewing apps, all vying for audience attention.
To make local community radio more easy to find on connected devices, the CBAA has been advocating over the last couple of years for the Government to introduce a radio prominence framework to make sure that community stations will always be easy for their local audiences to find on smart speakers.
In a positive development last week, the Government is now looking at proposals that will ensure smart speakers take users to the station they asked for and which will prevent smart speaker providers from charging either stations or listeners for access, altering broadcast content or overlaying their own advertising.
The Government’s radio prominence consultation paper mentions the important role played by community radio stations, acknowledging that they “have an immediate and direct connection to their communities.”
The CBAA is currently looking at how to support and strengthen the proposal, in collaboration with other free-to-air radio sectors. The main issue for CBAA at the moment is that the proposal does not specifically mention radio in cars. We know that in-car listening is key for community radio and we will keep working with commercial radio, public broadcasters and the Government to secure prominence for community radio in cars.
