SCMA | Southern Community Media Association

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

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

We got you sucked in with the title didn’t we?

Well it’s quite easy…. you could score your station FREE STREAMING for 12 MONTHS at 64kbps with up to 50 Listeners!

THAT’S RIGHT WE DOUBLED IT… Not 6 … But 12 MONTHS FREE STREAMING!!!

All you need to do is ‘LIKE’ us on FACEBOOK!

If you’re super keen, we’ll double your entry if you FOLLOW SCMA on TWITTER!

IT’S THAT EASY!

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

LIKE US ON FACEBOOK

BONUS!!! Get your presenters & staff onto this, and your station could generate a tonne of entries! There is no limit to the amount of entries for a station, but there is a limit to one entry per person per social network.

THIS COMPETITION HAS CLOSED – THANKS FOR ENTERING – CONGRATULATIONS TO PLENTY VALLEY FM & EMFM

Go on… get onto it!

We’ll announce the TWO WINNERS in our AUGUST newsletter (August 2010) so entries will close 5PM 1st August 2010.

Remember: You must be a member of the SCMA to enter this.

The Australian Communications Media Austhority (ACMA) has releaseed the Community Broadcasting Participation Guidelines after the Draft Guidelines which some of our members and the SCMA made submissions towards.

The ACMA has released the final guidelines with a message:

We hope that the guidelines will facilitate community broadcasting licensees’ understanding of the licence conditions, enabling them to continue to represent the community interest.

If you have any questions about the Guidelines please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the SCMA.

>> Download The Community Broadcasting Participation Guidelines

Col Elliott is one of Australia’s most loved sons, an entertainer with the ability to draw huge crowds the length and breadth of Australia.  His ongoing popularity and longevity in the entertainment industry is legendary.

Col has joined forces with the SCMA to put together a special deal for financial members of the SCMA.

Col Elliott has an impressive background with over 20 album releases (13 of them Gold and Platinum) and a swag of successful videos and DVD’s to his credit, Col has notched up a career spanning over 30 years.  Comedy is Col’s forte and now Col brings his love of comedy to radio with his all new “Col Elliott’s Comedy Quiz”.

Each week 5 specially produced questions and answers about anything and everything to do with comedy are available to members of the SCMA across Australia at a special member’s only price.

Col Elliott’s Comedy Quiz is voiced by Col himself and is the perfect new competition idea for your station.  It will provide a valuable sponsorship opportunity for your station so to find out more and receive the specially discounted weekly rate as an SCMA member, go to mySCMA http://my.scma.org.au/ and then go to the members deals section and you will get the detail on cost and how to get involved in this fantastic opportunity for your station at a great SCMA Members Price the savings on this alone will more than pay your membership.

Not yet a member of SCMA and want to know more visit www.scma.org.au to find out about SCMA, what we do, what we offer and how to become a member.

SCMA is a can do organisation

Member station 5 TCB who recently lost their production area and all their production equipment have once again proven you cannot keep the spirit of volunteers in community broadcasting down.

The CEO of SCMA went to Bordertown on Saturday June 12^th to roll up his sleeves and assist the station to re establish a production area and to take some badly needed software to the station to get them back into the business of producing their stations needs in house.

Picture: (Left) The Temporary Production room established over the long weekend. There is still more equipment to come but this is a big start

There is a real spirit within the station and its volunteers and even though the production area is devastated and the remainder of the station smells like a bon fire they are setting about the business of being a community broadcaster.

Damage within the station was restricted to the production area thanks to some quick thinking by station staff. While the loss is huge with not only computers, panels, software and all you need to run a production studio destroyed the loss also included memorabilia, station history, CD’s , paperwork and so much more.

With a bit of scaping and searching we managed to find enough equipment to set up a temporary production area within the disused news production booth. While the equipment may have seen better days and wouldn’t be on any wish list the bottom line is 5 TCB are now fully capable of producing whatever they need  from the temporary studio until such time as the production area can be rebuilt and re equipped.

As always I found a band of dedicated volunteers willing to assist and get the job done with a smile, a joke and some hard work along with a bit of creative lateral thinking.

You will see by the pictures within this article that they were extremely lucky that the fire remained contained within the production area.

Congratulations to the crew at 5 TCB on how well they are dealing with the damage and disruption that the fire has caused.

The Latest news from the battle front that is member station 5 TCB Bordertown is that after some hard work from the dedicated team they have returned to air just over 25 hours after fire destroyed the production area and put the station off air.

Station manager Barry Hayman confirmed via phone that the station had returned to air this afternoon after electricians isolated the production area and restored power to the remainder of the station. While the production area has been destroyed the remainder of the station has only suffered smoke damage and a little water damage.

The stations committed group of volunteers and staff are working hard to resume normal programming at the station and establish a temporary production area. As always the show must go on and the team at 5 TCB have had their share of drama over the last 12 to 18 month and the show has remained on.

SCMA will continue to keep you updated as more information comes to hand from 5 TCB.

A lot of work in the future will need to go into the reconstruction of the Production area of the station, so if you would like to donate to 5TCB at this time of need please donate using PayPal at www.melomania.com.au (Melomania is a 5TCB program that’s inlcuded a donate link on their website)

The Community Broadcasting Foundation (CBF) is calling for tenders to develop Indigenous Broadcast Awareness Materials for the community radio broadcasting sector.   The aim of the project is to encourage non-Indigenous stations to include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander broadcasters at their station.  This not a cultural specific awareness program but will include information about general principles, protocols and some Cultural material.

For further information refer to the Information below or alternatively visit the tender section of the CBF website.

Further information: Download the Project Brief (PDF 130kb)