The Community Broadcasting Foundation welcomes the Albanese Government’s announcement of additional funding support for community broadcasting.
Recognising that local media and community broadcasting is critical to the health of our democracy, social cohesion and informing communities, the announcement includes:
- An additional $15 million over three years to support the community broadcasting sector, including $3 million to support community television, through the Community Broadcasting Program, distributed via the CBF.
- An additional $12 million over three years to support First Nations broadcasting and media through the Indigenous Broadcasting and Media Program, distributed via the National Indigenous Australians Agency.
The announcement also includes $153.5 million in funding over four years to support local news and public interest journalism via the News Media Assistance Program to be delivered by the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts.
CBF CEO Jo Curtin welcomed the announcement.
“The new $15 million in funding that the CBF will distribute is a welcome much-needed immediate relief to our highly oversubscribed grants programs while the Government continues work with the sector on the Community Broadcasting Sector Sustainability Review.
“This will support many of the 450+ community broadcasters to continue delivering impactful outcomes connecting and strengthening communities and amplifying diverse voices through the sharing of news, information, music and culture.
“We look forward to allocating these funds out to community at the earliest opportunity – with most funds anticipated to be allocated through our first grant round of 2025/26, opening for application on 13 January 2025.
“With so many pressures on stations, we welcome this additional funding to help address the urgent need for increased support for community broadcasters who are doing it tough while working so hard to support their local communities.
“This funding will start to address the critical needs of hundreds of community broadcasters who reach out to us for support and are aiming to deliver on the sector’s aspirations as expressed in Roadmap 2033.
“We look forward to continuing to work with the Government as they reach the conclusion of their Sustainability Review which will address the long-term sustainability in the sector so that stations can reach their full potential and achieve even greater impact in their communities.”
[Photo: Alive 90.5 FM presenters at an outside broadcast. Alive FM (formerly known as 2CCR) were the recipient of both CBF’s Specialist Radio Programming grant and Development & Operations grant in Round 2 2024/25].