With his love of the alternative radio station he has listened to since university, and a passion for Brisbane music and community, volunteering at the station’s front desk is Mr Conway’s ideal job.

“The beauty of 4ZzZ FM is that it’s not mainstream, it’s community based and you get to meet different people from different backgrounds,“ he said.

“There are muso types to people off the street, very smart technical people, a whole variety of intellectuals.“

Mr Conway’s three years at the station’s front desk have placed him at the forefront of the association through his work with the public.

He has also worked at station events including the annual Brain Banana fundraiser, by promoting the station and selling merchandise.

Volunteer co-ordinator Giordana Caputo said the efforts of volunteers such as Mr Conway ensured the station’s continuing success.

Radiothon, 4ZzZ’s annual subscriber and volunteer drive, will run from August 13 to 14, with events including a week-long exhibit titled 2010: A Zed Odyssey at the Bleeding Heart Gallery, show- casing the station’s 35 years on air.

Visit 4ZzZ or tune into 102.1FM.

Source: Wynnum Herald

Throughout the 34 years of broadcast the station has played a vital part in the careers of many local musicians including big names like The Saints, Powderfinger, The Grates plus many more.

4ZzZfm relies on subscriptions and sponsorship to fund the running costs and Radiothon is the biggest annual fundraiser with a veritable hive of activity planned for the week long celebrations!

With over 80,000 listeners a week, 4ZzZfm takes the Radiothon subscription drive very seriously, offering up thousands of dollars worth of prizes for anyone who subscribes during the festival. There will also be a whole range of fantastic daily prize draws and show giveaways including cd packs, posters and 4ZzZfm merchandise.

Back then it was all about the music and community youth radio provided a significant counterpoint to the “Middle of the Road” FM format of the day.

Today, a new group of youth stations have emerged – Sydney’s FBi, Melbourne’s SynFM, Adelaide’s Fresh FM, Hobart’s Edge, Brisbane’s 4Bi, Radio Metro and others, continue to break new ground in broadcasting.

More than ever, community youth radio resonates with an audience hungry for diversity in music and disenchanted with the sameness of commercial radio. Emerging technology is enabling access to the radio in new ways. Podcasts, sophisticated websites, radio streaming and e-newsletters for members are all tools that new radio stations have easily adapted to traditional broadcasting.

But it’s still all about the music.

For advertisers, youth radio represents a chance to target a savvy audience of opinion leaders, and cool hunters. To get close to these consumers via a highly credible channel, and in a way that has the potential to generate both goodwill and brand loyalty.

Students are busy  – most work part-time, an economic necessity and vital to getting a job after graduation.   Many classes are online, cheaper to deliver for cash-strapped unis and convenient for the ‘education consumer’.  In short, students are off-campus.  It has been a long time since the average student has had the time to enjoy the societies, newspapers and activities provided by student organisations.  The fact that these resources are fast disappearing has barely registered for the majority.

Students are on the bus, the train, the web, the beach, in the malls, in pubs and clubs, at their jobs and at their mates.  So  – how best to reach this most mobile of consumer group?   The demise of the student paper has seen the street press category resurgent.  Live music has made a comeback and street press titles provide the most comprehensive local What’s Oninformation to young readers across Australia.  Street press is easily available with free distribution via the venues frequented by the target audience.  It is a trusted medium; the big capital titles have been published since the eighties and are CAB-audited.  Perth’s Xpress magazine, published since 1985 has an audited circulation of 40,000 copies per week, the biggest in Australia.   New titles for regional centres such as Tasmania, Newcastle and the Sunshine Coast have successfully launched in the past few years.

University is a time of self-discovery, and students do not want to feel they are part of a production line. They want to be the first to hear something new, and to share this knowledge with their peers.    Community radio plays the new music first and early adopters (students fit this profile) reject the repetitive FM radio playlist.

I don’t really think in terms of students, says Celia Donovan, a former Marketing Manager for the University of New South Wales Student Union and now the Marketing Manager for Spots & Space, media representatives for street press nationally.   I think in terms of 18-25 year olds, typically living at home, who are working or studying, often doing both.  They meet at events, or online.  Marketers need to look at the community of interest, not where they study.  Street press and community radio catch this demographic on the move, and add valuable reach and relevance to national campaigns that can include ambient, experiential, online and mainstream media.

In terms of on-campus corporate marketing opportunities, O-Week remains a significant annual event that captures the attention of many students.  After that, events and activities are highly fragmented and tend to attract small numbers of the same students over and over throughout the year, according to Donovan.

It would be wrong to say the Federal Government’s VSU legislation is responsible for the death of campus life.  In truth, the ‘hollow’ campus has been a long time coming.  The process started with the introduction of HECS fees in 1989 – a move that made being a student a suddenly serious undertaking.  By 2005, when Voluntary Student Unionism legislation was passed, the majority of students were frankly relieved that student organisations could no longer collect their hefty annual levy.

Written by Celia Donovan - Former Marketing Manager and Commercial Services Manager for the University of New South Wales Student Union from (1999-2003)

Fbi

(L to R: Jason Allen (SYN TV Executive Producer), Jack Post, Alex Ford and Adrian McMahon (SYN FM Programming Manager and former Producer of the Jack & Fordy Show)

Radio is undergoing a seismic shift, similar to that of the late 1970’s.   Then, change was precipitated by youth disenchantment with the dominant Rock-FM format and the emergence of Punk music.  There was an explosion of independent new stations, including 3RRR in Melbourne, 2JJ (which became JJJ) in Sydney and 4ZZZ in Brisbane.   Together with 3D (Adelaide), 2SER (Sydney) and 6RTRFM (Perth), these strong stations have evolved from wild child to icon, in their 20+ years of existence.

The cycle is repeating now, driven partly by the worldwide dance music phenomenon, and partly by the desire of younger audiences to take charge of the airwaves one again.  To create original content and to write the playlist.

Community radio is the ideal home for young, would-be-broadcasters.  Like the internet – another young medium – community radio encourages personal access, independence and communities of interest.  Unlike the internet, these new stations have powerful FM transmitters offering broadcast coverage of the entire metropolitan area.  In the case of Sydney’s Fbi, the signal is clearly heard from the Blue Mountains to Wollongong.

While relatively new, these stations are by no means rough.  Professional production standards, excellent programming, fully interactive websites, talkback/chat, outside broadcasts and events are all vital ways in which the stations interact with audiences and the broader community.

Hobart’s newcomer Edge Radio took out Radio Station Of The Year award at the Community Broadcasting Association’s national conference in December 2003.

In Melbourne, Jack Post and Alex Ford (Jack and Fordy) are the famously young hosts of the Friday show for SYN TV.  The pair recently won Community TVs Antenna Award for best male presenters. SYN TV’s innovative show is broadcast 4-5pm daily in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney, and simulcast on SYN FM in Melbourne.  The cross-platform broadcast on TV and Radio is the only one of its kind in Australia and Jack Post and Alex Ford (Jack and Fordy) seem certain to follow Channel 31s most famous son – Rove McManus, to success.

The talent and innovation coming from the new wave of community youth broadcasters will be a major influence on the radio industry in the next few years.