Last month, Tone Deaf reported on the success of Triple J in the latest radio ratings survey. The national youth broadcaster came out on top in every metropolitan radio market for the 25-39-year-old demographic – the most highly coveted for advertisers.
As we noted, the news bodes well for the future of Australian radio and homegrown music, hopefully serving as a wake-up call to commercial broadcasters, who most often neglect local music in favour of rotating Top 40 hits, usually from overseas.
But it’s not just our government-funded national broadcaster that’s seeing good numbers thanks to a healthy focus on local music, Australian community radio just had its best year ever, a year in which Aussie music was featured at an all-time high.
According to a new statement from the Australian Music Airplay Project (Amrap), Australian music airplay on community radio reached an all-time high over the last 12 months, jumping to 39 percent, with over 2,000 hours of Aussie music now aired on community radio, collectively, every day.
For those playing catch-up, Amrap are responsible for getting new Australian music onto community radio. Over the past 12 months, they’ve helped over 1,400 Australian artists get their music on community radio, with directors from 300 stations subscribed to Amrap’s distribution service.
The organisation’s results coincide with new independent research that found 5 million Australians listen to community radio every week, which marks a 30 percent increase in the last decade. Amrap Manager Chris Johnson says the results are a testament to community radio’s dedication to Aussie music.
“We always knew that community radio was hungry for Australian music.”“We always knew that community radio was hungry for Australian music, but it was tough for artists and labels to get their releases to the thousands of volunteer broadcasters who decide what gets to air,” he said in a statement.
“We’re extremely proud that Amrap has built a bridge between the artists and the airwaves, and that community radio audiences are growing along with Australian music airplay.”
One Aussie artist who’s benefited from getting his music on community radio is Dan Sultan, Amrap’s inaugural ambassador, who said that community radio is “instrumental” in an artist getting their music and profile out into the public.
“Many community radio broadcasters are super fans,” says Mr Johnson. “They are at the cutting edge of new music discovery and are immersed in their local music scenes. We see that they are often first to reach into their pockets to buy tickets to a local gig or pledge to their favorite band’s crowd funding campaign.”
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“Other broadcasters tell us that they don’t give a toss about following musical trends. They will air great music in their chosen genre even if it doesn’t fit the current trend cycle.”
“That’s really important for the Australian music scene because it means that established artists who are still releasing great music but are ignored by mainstream media can maintain an audience and their career.”
Australian Music Prize nominee Caitlin Park also spoke on the impact community radio has had on her career, saying, “Community radio broadcasters in this country are strong and very loyal, and most importantly, they care about music and work hard to support local artists.”
Amrap will be curating a community radio panel at BIGSOUND next week, featuring artist Emma Donovan, Joe Alexander from label BEDROOM SUCK, Anita Nedeljkovic from Corner Presents, Stephen Goodhew from FBi Radio, and more.
