Congratulations and a huge THANK YOU to the 15 radio stations who joined our Regional Development project this year – helping to empower people with a print disability in regional communities.

We’re so excited about the new RPH programs and partnerships you’re starting, the volunteers you’re training and the audiences you’re reaching on this journey.

And we’re so proud that we could bring you new Radio Reading resources, RPH training opportunities, and ‘Standards for RPH Programming on Community Radio‘ as part of this project.

Learn more about the Regional Development project

Results at stations

Our target group was a mix of stations already doing Radio Reading, stations broadcasting Vision Australia Radio content via the CRN, and stations doing ethnic and Indigenous specialist programming.

And the response was 100% positive!

• 12 stations joined us as partners via a Memorandum of Understanding.
• 3 more stations, 2BAY, 4RFM, and 2ARM, plan to partner with us later this year.

Some stations were already serving their communities with vital Radio Reading services – we wanted to make sure they were supported with new resources, training opportunities, and changes to the CBF funding application process.

3 stations, 4DDB in Darling Downs, Ballarat’s Voice FM, and Adelaide’s Hills Radio were already receiving CBF funding.

5 stations, 4DDB, Voice FM, Alpine Radio, OCR-FM, 2BLU, and 2MCE were already part of our National Sponsorship Scheme

Some stations were new to Radio Reading, but couldn’t wait to get involved, and immediately started planning new programs.

New Radio Reading programs

We inspired 8CCC in Alice Springs to recommence their long-running (12 year) Radio Reading program, which dropped out in 2011. They’re partnering with a local disability support organisation to involve local people with disability in program production, and have lined up CMTO RPH training to support them.

Trax-FM in Port Pirie will also produce their new program in partnership with a local organisation, ‘PaperTalk’. Papertalk is supported by the Royal Society for the Blind SA to deliver readings of the local newspaper via posted SD cards to people with vision impairment. Trax-FM’s new alliance with Paper Talk will ensure local news and information programs are produced professionally at the station and broadcast to their audience right after the newspapers are released.

Two stations in Western Australia, 6ESP in Esperance and Harvey’s 6HRV will be the first-ever generalist stations in WA with local RPH programs.

Yeppoon’s 4NAG have also started a new Radio Reading program as an outcome of this project.

We supported Broome’s Indigenous station, 6GME (Goolarri Media), to launch a local program building on their popular broadcast of Vision Australia Radio programming via the CRN. 6GME plan to broadcast the ‘Broome Advertiser’ first in English, and then in Yawuru, a wonderful example of how Radio Reading programming could not only provide equal access to information for Indigenous people with a print disability but also help promote First Nations’ languages.

Byron’s Bay-FM and 4RFM in Moranbah have new RPH programs in the pipeline, we can’t wait to bring them on board!

New RPH training opportunities

We were thrilled that so many stations in this project have taken up the new CMTO Pathways training we’ve helped develop.

2MCE, Alpine Radio, 8CCC, 4NAG, Trax-FM, OCRFM, Hills Radio, 6ESP and Goolarri will all benefit from dedicated RPH training sessions delivered at their stations this year.

They join 10 other generalist stations who have jumped at the new RPH training opportunities the Community Media Training Organisation is delivering.

Learn more about RPH training

Increased funding

We started this project to extend Radio Reading to regional communities knowing that we needed to better connect stations with funding support for their programs.

As you can see in the charts below, this project has supported greater access to Community Broadcasting Foundation grants this year, to the tune of $22,237.

Congratulations to the 7 regional stations whose Radio Reading programs will receive Specialist Radio Programming funding in Round 1 2019/20.

A fantastic result for RPH Australia, and especially for regional stations and the communities they serve.

Learn more about RPH funding support

What’s next?

This pilot project was made possible by Community Broadcasting Foundation funding in 2018/19. We have big plans to extend the reach of Radio Reading services to another 20 regional stations. We also want to increase the diversity of Radio Reading by extending our support to the Indigenous and ethnic community media sectors.

Unfortunately we didn’t receive funding support to steam ahead with these plans later this year. But our partnerships and training resources will endure, we’re co-presenting with the CMTO at sector conferences, and we will do our best to support and nurture Radio Reading programming as it grows nationwide.

Participating stations

These are the stations in rural, regional and remote Australia we’ve partnered with so far:

New South Wales
Bathurst – 2MCE
Katoomba – RBM 89.1 FM 2BLU
Byron Bay – 2BAY Bay FM
Armadale – 2ARM Armidale Community Radio

Northern Territory
Alice Springs – 8CCC

Queensland
Toowoomba – 4DDB 102.7FM Darling Downs
Yeppoon – 4NAG
Moranbah – 4RFM Rock FM

South Australia
Mount Barker – Hills Radio
Port Pirie – 5TRX Trax FM

Victoria
Mount Beauty – 3VKV Alpine Radio
Ballarat – 3BBB Voice FM
Colac – 3OCR OCR FM

Western Australia
Harvey – 6HRV Harvey Community Radio
Esperance – 6ESP 103.9Hopefm

Could your station provide essential
information radio programs, like readings from local newspapers and
magazines, to serve people with a print disability in your local
community?

Email us at [email protected] to find out more.

Project Partners

We sincerely thank our project partners:

Tagged PDF are experts in accessibility. They’re helping us publish fully accessible project resources.

The Community Media Training Organisation – delivering specialised training to project participants and providing resources to support our team.

This project is supported by the Department of Communications and the Arts through the Community Broadcasting Foundation.