It has been five years since Australian Independent Radio News (AIR News) launched itself into the radio marketplace across Australia. It has been a successful time for the business, except for one hiccup this year when the CBAA warned community stations not to take private news services.
Originally targeted at Community radio stations as an easy and dependable professional radio news reporting service, AIR News has now entered the commercial marketplace too with Flow FM across most of South Australia, some of the Northern Territory and Victoria, as well as through Albany WA commercial outlet Gold MX.
Australia’s smallest radio news service has grown to service 38 stations in all states and territories. AIR News head Artie Stevens says it is “all about listening to client needs” and making the tweaks in the service where there’s an obvious need:
“We were consistently told that none of the national news services, including ourselves, provided a local or state based news service for Community stations, so we added extra breakfast bulletins for each state and territory as well as a special news service for Riverina radio stations.”
When the CBAA issued its warning last year, urging stations to use the National Radio News Service rather than commercial companies, Stevens wrote to the community sector’s peak body saying:
I’m very concerned by the tone of the current CBAA newsletter in regard to Community Radio Stations broadcasting AIR News…
Let me be perfectly clear, whilst we are a commercial operation, our target audience is Community Radio Stations and as such our focus is to provide National and State/Territory bulletins appropriate for consumption by Community Radio Stations.
That some Commercial operators have had the good sense to take our service is purely to our advantage as it gives us a wider audience than would normally be expected in some areas.
AIR News is very focused on providing client stations with a balanced news service with no particular political leanings. It is our job to report the facts.
We are also the only national news service that also delivers State and Territory specific bulletins to Community Radio Stations as well as region-specific news in our delivery of Riverina News.
Perhaps the CBAA will one day ‘demonstrate independence in programming’ and look to remove the obvious monopoly News situation that currently exists within your organisation.”
Stevens says, rather than it having a negative impact on the business the warning has had a positive impact “with a notable increase in enquiries from Community Stations.”
He says he does not want to take the matter further, “rather we would like to liaise with the CBAA to offer a level playing field to their members and give them appropriate competition via their DDN rather than the current monopoly. . . There are no subsidies, grants or otherwise to support the organisation, just the monthly fees that we charge stations which are and will remain competitive.”