SCMA | Southern Community Media Association

Rob Stewart, Treasurer of 3BBR-FM, got the surprise of his life when he was announced as the recipient of a Paul Harris Fellowship.

This is Rotary’s way of recognising appreciation for a substantial contribution to its humanitarian and educational programs.. Recipients are presented with a certificate, a medallion, and a lapel pin, which identifies them as advocates of the Rotary Foundation’s goal of world peace and understanding.

From what we have seen of Rob’s work at 3BBR-FM, it is a well-deserved accolade. Rob led a small team of workers to transform the drab bathroom, turning it into a light, bright, disability friendly facility, installed a ramp at the entrance and persuaded the shire to put up finger signs to the station. And those are just the major achievements.

We were delighted to be able to join the long list of organisations which recommended Rob for the fellowship.

Yes the Melomaniacs have over come all of the drama of the past few months and have shown their deep commitment by putting their show onto PDS effective immediately.

As of right now Melomania is available via the PDS and is waiting to be added to your stations playlist.

The show is broken into around 7 segments allowing plenty of time for you to insert sponsorship announcements and other promotional materials.

So what is Melomania all about ……………

Meaning Of Melomania is A Singular passion for music that is beyond all reason, hence the name of the show.

Melomania has been on the Airwaves since AUGUST 2008 and has already had talented national and international artists from many styles of music from Country through to mainstream as well as all places in between. The Melomaniacs also interview local guests not just for them but also locals from around Australia.

Melomania is about letting you know what is charting, what the celebs are up to, even a bit of gossip as well as what’s new.

We also like to introduce bands and artists that you wouldn’t usually hear even if they are from the same town or city as you. We love to discover new artists.

Basically Melomania is just a few hours of fun, great music and a little bit of craziness all rolled into one great show that your listeners will just become addicted to.

Melomania it’s young, it’s vibrant it’s entertaining … and who doesn’t like music?

Want to know more go to www.melomania.com.au and take a look

ACMA has released it’s Draft Community Broadcasting Not‐for‐Profit Guidelines.

Download the PDF document here, if you have anything about the draft guidelines you’d like to discuss with us please get in touch using the contact us page.

Draft Community Broadcasting Not‐for‐Profit Guidelines

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (the ACMA) has developed draft
Community Broadcasting Not‐for‐Profit Guidelines and the document is now being released
for industry comment.

Submissions marked ‘community broadcasting not‐for‐profit guidelines’ should be sent by 5.00 pm Monday 1 November 2010 to:

Email: communitybroadcasting@acma.gov.au

Fax: 02 9334 7799 [marked ‘Attention: Community Allocations and Information Section’]
Post: Community Allocations and Information Section
Australian Communications and Media Authority

PO Box Q500
Queen Victoria Building
Sydney NSW 1230

Peter Weeks from member station UG FM was the MC for the reopening of the Marysville SES HQ following the Feb 7th fires. As well as Peter’s involvement with UG FM he is also an SES volunteer and SES Media Liaison Officer with the Alexandra Unit.

The majority of the SES Building was badly damaged and Marysville lost much of their equipment and primary rescue vehicle that has been replaced. The Victorian Historic Racing Register Club raised $28,000 to replace road accident equipment and that was also handed over. The SES Long service Medals for 10 and 30 years of services were awarded by the Premier to Marysville volunteers.

UG FM decided to broadcast some of the activities on the day with their new Tieline outside Broadcast Equipment funded by the Bendigo Bank Community Fund to the tune of $17,000 and talked live via NextG IP connection back to their Alexandra Studios and across their network of 5 transmitters.

Peter advised they were fortunate that, at late notice, the Premier of Victoria and the following day the Prime Minister both payed a visit. Both were more than happy to have a chat live on UGFM together. That’s something you don’t see too often.

The Prime Minister appeared to really enjoy the day. It was her first official function in Victoria as Prime Minister.

The quote of the day goes to the Prime Minister. Peter Weeks reported that following the largest media conference he had ever seen the PM told them all “Ok we have to go and talk on Community Radio now”

And they did, on UGFM!

Apologies for the small images pics taken on phone

A Must Read For All Community Broadcasters

We all know that there is an election waiting to happen, infact by the time you read this there may already be an election underway.

Politics can be an exciting game and an election even more exciting but with that game just like all games there are rules and this article will outline what rules all community radio broadcasters need to adhere to during an election.

We have an election, we have rules and we’ve also got the Australian Communications Media Authority, who will be quite busy at the moment trying to ensure that everything runs smoothly during a very action packed peirod of Australian History in the making.

The Election is not an everyday event so understanding the rules is probably not going to be easy and that’s why ACMA has released a detailed factsheet that will really aid all of you in understanding and complying with the rules.

Now to understand what the rules mean for you as a community broadcaster you’ll need to download and read the PDF factsheet below, but first let’s sumarise the key points for reference:

The Broadcasting Services Act, Parts 1 & 2 of Schedule 2 contain definitions and rules that deal with access, timing and identification in relation to the broadcast of political and election matter.

1. Access for all parties – If you broadcast any political or election matter during any election period then you must give all parties contesting the election a reasonable oppourtunity to also broadcast election matter. You don’t have to provide access free of cost.
2. Blackout period – A broadcaster must stop broadcating election advertisement from the end of the Wednesday before the polling day until the close of the poll on polling day.
3. Announcement particulars – All radio broadcasts must include a spoken announcement (a tag containing authorisation and political party etc) of the required particulars as detailed in the downloadable factsheet (pages 1 & 2).
4. Record Keeping – Political & election material broadcast must be logged and records including the name, address & occupation or the person who requested the broadcast or the company name, address and principal office address if requested by a company. Keep these records for 6 weeks or until the close of polling on polling day whichever is longer. A Broadcast in the form of news, an address, a statement, a commentary or discussion, that relates to a political subject or current affairs, must have a record of the matter in a form approved by the ACMA. The record must be kept for six weeks, or 60 days if a complaint has been made about the matter.

The above key points require detailed understanding and the definitions of many terms are available in the Broadcasting Services Act 1992.

If a licence condition in relation to political or election matter is breached, the ACMA may take enforcement action, including the issue of remedial directions, or the acceptance of enforceable undertakings.

Please donwload the ACMA’s PDF Factsheet here.

If you have any further questions about the above subject please get in touch with us using the contact page or email info [at] scma.org.au – replace [at] with @

Monday 5th July 2010

Voice FM announces the release of their new website – www.voicefm.com.au

An exciting addition to not only Ballarats own community broadcaster but a great community resource for all.
www.voicefm.com.au is designed as a resource and information portal as well as a contact point for all things relating to the Ballarat community.

The site features a myriad of information including an events guide, a comprehensive gig guide, local news, community information and dynamic links for all things Ballarat. This valuable community asset has been a long time coming and aims to improve community access to information our community demands.

Tully Smith the Chairman of Voice FM said “We at your community station 99.9 Voice FM have been undergoing significant change in recent months with a real focus on the needs of the Ballarat community. Voice FM believes the Ballarat community deserve a website that truly reflects the happenings and events within our community”.

We encourage all parts of our community to actively participate in this vital communication portal and the website will facilitate quick easy access to local information, news and events.

Ends

Media Contact: Brad Ward (Web Master) – 0488 616 924

Great News!  Australia’s National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders music program – DEADLY SOUNDS has joined forces with the Program Delivery System to provide member stations of the SCMA another great programming option for their stations. Deadly Sounds is a weekly national indigenous music, interview and information program that runs for around 59:00 and provides stations with the opportunity to add more variety and information to their format.

The President of the SCMA Helen Bath said “I welcome Deadly Sounds to PDS.  It is great to see another quality program added to the PDS and it will prove to be a great asset to SCMA Members”

Also added to PDS in the last day is the newly developed CSA bank that has a variety of CSA’s available for member stations.  Once you have subscribed to this, any new CSA’s will automatically be downloaded to your station.

There are a lot of new programs about to be added to the PDS system as well as an ever increasing and evolving website, mySCMA site and so much more happening within the SCMA.
Not yet a member of SCMA? http://www.scma.org.au/join-scma and find out what a Can do Association can do for you

We’ve just added 4 more CSA’s to mySCMA for members to download.

Included in our latest addition to the Member Downloads section of mySCMA are the following CSA’s:

Lifeline – Stress Down Day – 2 mp3 CSA’s – 1x30seconds – 1x15seconds

Cancer Council – Daffodil Day – 2mp3 CSA’s – 1x30seconds – 1x15seconds

Members go login to mySCMA and grab these downloads today.