It’s what this medium does best

When fires swept through NSW the other week (and are still going in some regions) radio networks with mulitple stations found themselves on emergency broadcast footing at many of them. Grant Broadcasters’ stations happen to be in many of the markets that were affected. David Rogerson, (beloe left) Group Director – Programming and Content at Grant Broadcasters tells how his network sprung into action.

Grant Broadcasters quickly invoked our internal Emergency Services response plans when details of the first fires were provided by the RFS relating to The Southern Highlands of NSW.  
 
We had three major fire fronts across our listening areas which spread from The Hunter Valley/Newcastle in the north impacting the 2NM/POWER FM and Hot Country listening areas, through to Wilton and the hinterland around the Illawarra escarpment ( WAVE FM and Hot Country) , and then the Southern Highlands of NSW ( 2ST, POWER FM and Hot Country).
 
Social media played an important part in maintaining a “conversation” with listeners to update them on what was happening in the various fire zones.  We found that many of our listeners travel outside the area for work, to visit friends or just for a day’s pleasure. 

The hits to our web pages and use of our Social Media Facebook pages climbed enormously. 

All stations maintained 24 hour live and local status, which also included our behind the scenes digital and content teams sourcing updated information for  our social media pages and web sites.  
The South Coast and Southern Highlands providing key areas of concern as various Emergency and Watch and Act alerts were activated via advice from the Rural Fire Service.