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The only reason there is a breakfast announcer is because the politicians want to be able to reach the electors in their electorate. This caused the ACMA to have local content rules.
The ACMA changed the rules for AM stations to give them a supplementary FM licence most of which are networked content.
Digital Radio Mondiale in the VHF band has been available to broadcasters for 10 years. The regional broadcasters should have adopted it by now. It would mean that the poor sounding AM could have been swapped for good quality stereo sound and the supplementary "FM" program would have been transmitted by the same transmitter. There is enough data available to use Journaline to produce an electronic newspaper including pictures. The slideshow could also be used for advertising along with program related images. That would be good since rural newspapers are disappearing. The radio station journalist can produce text/images along with reading the news, all live. There is no printing costs and no more transmission costs.
DAB+ used in metro areas could do the same but has filled simulcasts of analog radio and poor sound quality computer replays of various music types and no announcers. How does this type of programming compare to streaming from international sources?
The ACMA should have limited a broadcaster to a maximum of a pair of each program streams so there would be more variety of broadcasters. The transmitters are effectively owned by Commercial Radio Australia.
The author stimulated discussion in a previous post on community radio and regional radio. He raised valid concerns about the inroads made by community radio into the audience of commercial radio. I replied that community radio were acting within the law especially when it came to sounding professional and using professional people to raise funds.
The key is in paragraph 17 of this article, reforming the BSA (Cth). In the previous article, I raised the issue of the extent a regional radio can re-transmit non-regional content. The law says that a regional station is defined as not being within reach of a local GPO and that regional content on regional radio must be local between 0600 and 1800.
If the BSA is to be reformed, which parties are going to lobby for less regional content or more regional content?
I will return to the issue of regional content and community radio.
The author is correct on how technology is reducing expenses and the need to employ staff. The author mentions the purchase of software to edit content and the outsourcing of technical staff. Technology is not limited to software.
Technology can encompass the quality and reliability of equipment required to broadcast. In a similar vein to the suburban TV & radio repair shops of the 1950s and 1960s, valves were frequently replaced and unreliably-connected solder joints were the fare of these TV & radio repair. An example of a dry solder joint is illustrated in the comedy series "Keeping Up Appearances" where Onslow wanted to turn on/off the TV or change channels by banging his hand on the top of the TV cabinet. A dry solder joint is a poorly or loosely-connected component such as a valve, resistor or capacitor to a circuit board and/or soldered and/or screwed terminal.
Then, the equipment used in radio and TV stations had electro-mechanical components such as motors and relays in audio and video magnetic tape machines.
Today, such equipment is only used to replay archival material. That includes turntables and those 'lucky' enough to have 16" transcription players which started playback from the inside.
Thus, when equipment is more reliable in build and quality, and the playback of content is digital, there is less need for the services of permanent technical staff. OK pedants, optical disk players (CD, DVD, Blu-ray, 4K) have motors (stepper motors) which are easily replaceable.
Then there is no need for continuity (for TV) and master control operations. In the TV industry, there has been consolidation in operations needing less staff. For example in 2013, ABC and WIN-TV made a separate entity to outsource their continuity and master control operations from Ingleburn on the outerskirts of Sydney.
Technology could also reduce expenses in the form of transmission mode which reduces the consumption of electricity. Mr St. John in other posts has made the point that the biggest cost in running an AM transmitter is the energy used in transmitting the carrier frequency.
The carrier frequency is constantly operating BUT does not carry the 'information' which is contained in the sidebands. Mr St. John advocates DAB+ in cities and DRM+ in regional areas.
These modes of transmissions require less energy by virtue of not requiring sending and at the same time have capabilities of higher quality audio (depending on the bits per second rate), text and picture information (journaline) and emergency wake up of the receiver.
The issue for digital transmission in regional areas requires the lobbying of the regional broadcasters to our Federal MPs to change the legislation, the BSA (Cth) and the availability of DRM+ receivers in the market place. The main producers of DRM+ receivers are from India and some European countries, source https://www.drm.org/products-2/ .
Returning to the community radio and the parallel with the regional papers. There has been consolidation of over 60 regional newspapers in Australia. Most of these papers are owned by News Corp.
Some may say that regional newspapers are dead.
Community newspapers are taking over where regional newspapers left.
As one 'volunteer' said "It's just getting the news out there to those who cannot get local news," Source, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-18/volunteer-run-newsletters-thrive-in-regional-areas-with-no-paper/12892854 .
The same could be said for community radio which is run by volunteers. They are providing the news and local content where regional radio cannot afford or does not want to provide.
It may well explain why regional radio is not the "...rivers of gold..." of yesterday.
Thank you,
Anthony of analytical Belfield