PBA FM celebrates achievements over the year and welcomes new broadcaster!

June 3, 2024
A group of four people of diverse gender and ethnicities sitting at a table wearing headphones conducting a live outdoor broadcast for an ethnic programming station for Harmony Day

PBA FM has had much to celebrate lately!  The station’s Salvadoran program has just reached its 26th year on air while its beloved program ‘Feel Good Nunga Radio’ was nominated for CBAA’s Excellence in Indigenous Broadcasting Award 2023, and won the First Nations Programming Award at the 2023 SACBA Bilby Awards!   There are no signs of slowing down for ‘Feel Good Nunga Radio’ as the ‘Yunga Nunga’ segment presented by Kel Rankine continues to grow in popularity, with more young local indigenous guests jumping on air to chat on the show.

PBA FM broadcasts from the TWELVE25 Youth Enterprise Centre in Salisbury on Kaurna Country, South Australia.  The station provides entertainment, information and access programs to the local community – as well as training opportunities in broadcasting from on-air presentation, and program production to administration, technical and research.  Broadcasting over 70 programs in 16 languages, the station believes in enabling a diversity of interests to have a voice in the public life of its community.   PBA FM has been a forum for many voices that speak to those who may feel excluded or limited in their capacity to take part in the social, cultural and political life of their community and country.

Reflecting on some of the highlights at the station over the past year, Station Manager Indi Wood believes their biggest success story has been the station’s Harmony Day Outside Broadcast (OB).  Led by the station’s multicultural team of presenters, Harmony Day saw five ethnic programs come together to produce two excellent hours of radio featuring interviews with local government, business owners, and members of their respective communities.  While it was not the first time PBA FM had participated in a Harmony Day OB – it was the first time producing a broadcast of this kind and it was a special opportunity for presenters at the station to interview and connect with its wonderfully diverse locals on this level.  ‘The comments we are getting from the sector and the community around us is that we are much more present and engaged in the community around us over the last 18 months’, shares Indi Wood.

In other exciting news, PBA also welcomes Aisley Castigo-Hancock, a new ethnic broadcaster who has also joined the station’s management committee.  Aisley works as accountant and has been instrumental to organising and providing financial and other administrative support to the committee group and the rest of the station, as well as facilitating attendances at ethnic collective meetings

PBA FM were the recipient of our Round 1 Specialist Radio Programming Grant 2023/24.  Funding supported marketing costs, events merchandise, attendances to sector conferences, live-stream & broadcast equipment, station events such as the Spanish Christmas party and other administrative costs.

Tune into PBA FM on 89.7FM or stream live from www.pbafm.org.au/listen-live !

[Image: PBA FM broadcasters at Harmony Day Outside Broadcast 2024]