CBAA unveils new three-year strategic plan

The Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA) has unveiled a new three-part strategic plan (2015 to 2018) to expand its influence and services. The aim is to "champion community broadcasting by building stations’ capability and creating a healthy environment for the sector to thrive."

The CBAA represents 444 community radio stations, which have 22,000 volunteers and staff and reach 5 million listeners a week.

It has pinpointed three strategic priorities.

Firstly, it wants to be able to have a greater say in political decisions, by nurturing a political environment that is “supportive”. It realises it can influence public policy through providing the sort of leadership and research which is accepted as credible by decision makers.

Its sway can also be made more effective, it points out, by widening its networks within and outside community broadcasting, and raising awareness of the vital role done by community broadcasting as an independent media and one which actively develops local music and arts.

Secondly, it is to grow the capability and sustainability of stations. This is by the CBAA helping stations with programming, content development, skills and knowledge and developing infrastructures for them.

Among a list of things that can be done is for stations to promote themselves through online services, collaborate more with each other, and increase the amount of Australian contemporary music played through the Amrap airplay project. The CBAA also sees improving the quality of transmission of regional and/or rural stations and strengthening the CBAA National Conference as important steps.

Thirdly, the CBAA want to strengthen its own capacity to provide leadership by ensuring it is financially well managed, fostering a high performance work environment, finding new revenue streams and tapping in on a wider amount of information and communications technology.

As part of its strategic plan, the CBAA also revamped its website to make it easier to read and navigate, and divided it into the categories of broadcasters, listeners and musicians to better target its news and issues.

The sector’s vision was developed in collaboration with the Australian Community Television Association, the Australian Indigenous Communications Association, Christian Media Australia, the National Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasters’ Council, Radio for the Print Handicapped and the Community Broadcasting Foundation.