The South Australian government last month held a multicultural festival, but didn’t promote it on Adelaide’s only local multicultural community radio station 5EBI.

Several commercial radio stations were involved with the festival and ran advertisements for it, but not the local ethnic station.

Station Chairman Juan Paolo Legaspi has written to Rob Lucas MP, the state treasurer and Chair of South Australia’s Government Communications Advisory Committee asking for an explanation as to why some government money was not spent with 5EBI.

The station broaadcasts in 44 languages and has “successfully contributed to multiculturalism” in South Australia during its four decade history.

Legaspi’s letter, sighted by radioinfo says:

Earlier this year the South Australian Government hosted a multicultural festival. It is our station’s understanding that the government advertised for this event via commercial radio.

It is highly disappointing that commercial stations received advertising for the multicultural festival 2019, without the involvement of the State’s only community multicultural broadcaster.

This is particularly in light of a memo issued In July 2018 by the Chair of the SA Multicultural Ethnic Affairs Commission advising best practice in promoting multicultural community events; which also included engagement with community multicultural media.

The station is seeking “an urgent review of government advertising procedures so that it properly reflects the importance of community media.”

A departmental spokesperson for South Australia’s Department of the Premier and Cabinet told radioinfo:  “In planning for the Multicultural Festival at a new location this year, the Department of the Premier and Cabinet’s Communications Team, in collaboration with the Multicultural Affairs team, determined the best way to encourage the broader community’s attendance and awareness of the festival was to target mainstream media.
 
“This decision to direct the advertising spend towards segments of the community less likely to be aware of the festival resulted in an extremely well-attended and successful event.” 

Festival publicity and signage featured a number of commercial stations.

The 5EBI team is urging the state government to review its advertising policy.