This year Sydney youth community radio station FBi will celebrate 10 years on air. Music Director Dan Zilber tells radioinfo what’s in store. The station was launched in August 2003, and the FBi team will hold a series of events during this year leading up to that date.
The station’s SMAC (Sydney Music Art and Culture) Awards, held last week at Carriage Works, were the first big event of the year.
They recognise the hard working and talented people who have contributed something special to Sydney’s creative culture: be it music, theatre, visual art, film or food. The winners are listed here.
“More things are in planning stages,” Zilber tells us, with a 10th Birthday party boutique festival being organised for the end of August.
“There’s also an ongoing series of gigs with our most heavily supported labels. Proceeds to FBi as a fundraising initiative… and we have an Art auction as well.
“For the Art auction musicians who come in for interviews do one off original drawings, which we will auction off. Florence & The Machine, Mercury Rev, Animal Collective, Girl Talk and others have already sat in our foyer and sketched pictures for us.
“And don’t forget our ongoing FBi Music Open Days, which are held monthly at FBi and off-site.”
Zilber expects the station’s 10 year to be a big one.
FBi was the successful winner of Sydney’s city wide youth community licence a decade ago after a fierce competition between FBi and other players such as the high profile Wild FM.
radioinfo was at the opening and reported it this way:
New Sydney community station FBi launched today in front of a crowd too big to fit through the front door.
Just before noon, when the speeches ended, the vibe was expectant as the clock ticked over to the official opening time and the crowd cheered and clapped. A new version of the old Masters Apprentices song Turn on your radio, which was recorded especially for the occasion, was the first song played on FBi 94.5 FM.
In true community radio spirit, FBi President Cass Wilkinson spoke to radioinfo before she had to go back to work at her day job as a NSW public servant.
The regulator, now ACMA, then the ABA, awarded the licence to FBi after Wild’s reputation was tarnished by a number of breach findings for what were considered to be unacceptable commercial activities. Rumours of a rebirth of Wild FM are around the traps at the moment. radioinfo will reveal details in the next few days.
Well done Dan. Great to have a station offering something different and giving fresh music an outlet. Here's to the next ten!