Fresh ideas for Sydney radio bid

Three attempts to establish a permanent gay and lesbian radio station in Sydney didn’t get the nod, but the people behind Melbourne’s JOY FM are looking to join the next licence bid.

JOY station manager Stephen Hahn said the station could provide some content to help a Sydney bid, but the real force would have to be a unified local presence.

The strength of doing any good community broadcasting is being on the ground, he said.

While there’s some validity to saying our community of interest is not linked geographically -” you can be queer no matter where you are -” a lot of the strength we have is that we’re in Melbourne and we speak to Melburnians about Melbourne.

But with enough volunteers, Hahn believed the community would be mad not to give it another shot. It is not known when the government will open up another frequency for bidding. Only one community licence has been up for tender since the failed bids by Free FM and Out FM in 2001.

There was a clear indication there wasn’t a united front, he said.

To do it properly we could provide some level of content into a Sydney bid. Current affairs could be shared across the country, but we’d need a force in Sydney to say Oxford St was amazing or shit, or Newtown is dying. You’ve got to have a local presence.

Content sharing between the independent queer broadcasters across the country has also been raised. The queer broadcasters from Queer Radio on ZZZ in Brisbane, Aqueerium in Adelaide, Borderline in Tasmania, and Dykes on Mikes and Queer Noise on Sydney’s own 2SER joined forces to participate in this year’s Mardi Gras parade.

Hahn also believed the gay broadcasters would remain strong despite online publishing because the independent sector had the ability to experiment and build audiences around specific communities.

JOY is moving to experiment in returning radio dramas to the airwaves and a talking newspaper service for the gay press. After it moved studios last year, Hahn hopes to use this year experimenting with programming and gaining program-specific sponsors.

We have this program called Well Well Well that attracts a really dedicated audience who seek that show for information, and you can easily insert paid-for health messages courtesy of the government, Hahn said. Not that your sponsors dictate what you put on air, but you find sponsors that fit with what you’re trying to do.

Further down the list of ways to Sydney’s gay and lesbian community listening to JOY is the idea of an iPhone application with the advances in 3G networks.