The effect of centralisation on regional radio: a case study of the super radio network in Northern New South Wales and South East Queensland

This research presents a case study of the Super Radio Network, the largest regional radio network in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Since the 1920s when radio, as a broadcast medium, was introduced to Australia the industry was highly regulated. This regulation extended to licensing, ownership limits, foreign investment and content. However, in 1992 the Keating Labor government further deregulated the radio industry through the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 giving licensees more freedom by removing ownership limits. Deregulation was meant to create a more diverse and localised radio industry. However, from 1992 onward, there has been an increase in the number of radio stations networking their programmes to regional Australia resulting in a perceived loss of local content and locally hosted programmes. This research examines the development of networking and the provision of local content and diversity in those networked environments. It examines, through interviews with radio practitioners, in particular programme-makers and managers within the Super Radio Network, how the role of radio practitioners as choice making agents work within the structures of legislation and radio formats to develop programme content for a local audience within a radio station’s licence area. Underlying this research is the focal theory of structuration developed by Anthony Giddens. The features of social systems and social production can be explained, according to Giddens, through the theory of structuration, specifically the notion of the duality of structure, which proposes that social systems, such as radio networks, exist through structural properties that consist of rules and resources that are both allocative (available material such as technology) and authoritative (non-material or human) and expressing the ‘mutual dependence’ of structure and agency. Interviews with radio practitioners show how these agents work within the structures in which the radio industry operates and the analysis shows how programme content is compiled and whether it relates to the local licence area. This analysis considers whether regulating local content and having locally hosted programmes adds to the localness of regional radio. Finally, as the thesis will demonstrate there is some confusion over the term ‘local’ and this confusion occurs not only in its use by programme-makers but also in its lack of definitional precision in broadcasting legislation and government policy statements. This results in problems for both the network operators and the communities they service. This research directly interrogates the question of what constitutes the local and localism by putting forward a definition of these terms to reflect the nature of regional radio as it competes with a burgeoning and fluid set of industry structures that streams audio content over the Internet.