Eastside Radio Annual Report

EASTSIDE RADIO ANNUAL REPORT

2018

RADIO EASTERN SYDNEY COOPERATIVE LIMITED ABN 80 650 456 Report of Directors Financial Year 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2018 Annual General Meeting 02 April 2019

The Directors present this report to members of the Radio Eastern Cooperative Limited on the financial statements of the financial year of the Cooperative ended 31 December 2018 and the affairs of the Cooperative for the same period.

Board of Directors at the end of the reporting period ending 31 December 2018 Name / office Natascha Moy (Chairman) Elected AGM FY 2016 William Ehmcke (Programming) Elected AGM FY 2017 Patrick Spedding (Technology) Elected AGM FY 2016 Lynda Reid (Secretary) Elected AGM FY 2016 Colin Ricardo (Business Strategy) Elected AGM FY 2017 Celeste Moroney (Marketing) Appointed Director Chris Zinn (Community) Appointed Director

Tony Falcone (Treasurer)

Meeting Meetings Eligible Meetings attended Attendance Natascha Moy 5 4 Lynda Reid 5 5 William Ehmcke 5 5 Patrick Spedding 5 4 Colin Ricardo 5 5

Celeste Maroney 5 4 Chris Zinn 2 2 Tony Falcone 5 4

Principal Activity The principal activity of the Cooperative is the management and operation of community radio station licensed as 2RES FM, broadcasting as Eastside Radio, serving the eastern and central regions of the Sydney metropolitan area. Operation commenced 1 October 1983. There has been no significant change in the nature of the principal activity during the reporting period.

Financial Results The financial reports are attached to this document.

The Board Over the past 12 months the Board has continued to focus attention on the areas identified as requiring additional strategy. This will provide the station with a sustainable platform for today and the future to come. With many new listening options available to the public in the digital age, radio remains a focus for community minded listeners as well as jazz, world music and arts lovers.

With this in mind, the Board has sought greater presenter input into strategy planning, with the year’s key event being the Presenter Conference in August 2018. We have also embarked on new technology, business and community strategies while maintaining focus on building our staff and sponsorship component. We are working on succession planning, business continuity, and the financial viability of the station, so that Eastside can do what it does best – great community radio. The Directors (both elected and appointed) remain committed to the station and offer a significant amount of time and expertise to their Board roles.

Governance and compliance (Lynda Reid) The Board is reaping the benefit of a well-balanced skills matrix - including its appointed directors - and each of the Directors contributed to various projects during 2018 in their respective area of expertise. The Board as a whole continues to update and modernise its approach to governance and compliance, and there are a number of policy refreshment reviews planned for the coming year.

Staff Tony Smythe has continued as our Station Managing Director, with adjustments to his role in 2018 so that he took on more sponsorship and funding responsibility. The Board is incredibly happy with the way he has adapted to this new role and we are looking forward to increasing our Eastside sponsorship funding in 2019. Gemma Purves joined the Eastside staff as the Operations Manager for a 6 month contract focusing on our volunteers and Chelsea Deeley has been appointed as Programming Director.

Funding Our regular June Radiothon raised approximately $35k. Congratulations to Cathy Kirkpatrick who - in between presenting The Last Waltz - produced one of our most successful Radiothons to date.

Our December Xmas Radiothon raised a little over $10k and we again donated over $7k in gifts for the children of Barnardos. Radiothon remains one of our most successful funding campaigns; without the presenters and volunteers who throw their weight behind this venture we would not have a station.

Our Supporter Film Screenings following the Radiothon continue to grow with close to 200 people attending both The Breaker Upperers and Green Book.

Notre Dame University will be trialling a 6 month program on Eastside, nurturing the youth presence at the station, about which the Board is very excited. The station has received confirmation that the university’s full form documentation is underway, for finalisation shortly.

Tony Smythe secured grant funding for the development of a retrospective live jazz series called Dust off the Tapes, as well as funding from the Community Broadcasting Foundation for the purchase of some Outside Broadcast Equipment.

Business Strategy (Colin Ricardo) We have actively pursued a strategy of connecting and being relevant with potential sponsorship opportunities for Eastside Radio during 2018. New potential sponsorship strategic focus; Identifying and aligning with iconic music and instrument brands along with connecting on-air programs with relevant sponsorship potentials like the new

relationship with Notre Dame and our existing relationship with Viv Healthcare.

We have also identified the potential to align with similar community base organisations and have commenced discussions with Royal Surf Life Saving Australia.

A new strategic approach has been to commence discussions with trusted brands. We pursued an exciting opportunity with Qantas, for Eastside to be the ‘discoverable’ music platform provider for domestic in-flight customers. At this time Qantas has put that project on hold with Eastside, however we remain in contact and will continue the conversations.

The Board has engaged with these strategic partnership and funding opportunities with a collaborative focus, supporting constructive dialog and direction setting when discussing new sponsorship potentials.

In summary, we have created a lot of conversation with new and existing sponsorship companies however, it does take time to win new sponsorship

income and we will continue to pursue the existing and new potentials to secure Eastside’s financial sustainability, for 2019 and beyond.

Presenter Conference (William Ehmcke and Celeste Maroney) We introduced our first presenter conference in 2018 and it was a huge success. Many thanks to William Ehmcke for his ideas, energy and negotiations with various providers. So many of our committed presenters and volunteers joined in an afternoon of development for the station and its community; it was a special opportunity to focus our attention on what it is that we love about Eastside and how to keep that happening.

The fantastic content gathered at the event and from listener forums was used to further develop our branding strategy, and we offered our Eastside community the opportunity to assess the branding statements posted in the station during the month of February 2019. The results have been interesting and have assisted us in working further towards our goal of generating programs and funding that is aligned to our stations’ thinking.

Our branding strategy remains a focus for 2019 in order to support our longer term funding sustainability goals, and we could not have managed nor

evaluated the input without the contribution of our Appointed Director Celeste Moroney.

Programming and Awards (Chelsea Deeley and Tom Dickson) The Programming Committee is currently made up of five presenters, one listener, one board member, Chair Tom Dickson and Programming Director Chelsea Deeley. The Committee meets approximately four times a year and communicates via email when it receives matter referrals.

The Committee’s main purpose is to review new program applications with a view to suitability for the Eastside schedule. The Committee also regularly reviews existing programs, to help support technical quality and content. Sometimes the Committee receives referrals for evaluation, and anybody can ask for a program or content to be assessed by the Committee for feedback.

Below is the number of evaluations undertaken in 2018 Number applications - 16 Number approved - 8 Number shows ended - 9 New shows still on air - 9

Major program grid reworks:

• Tuesdays: Vibez Brasil replaced by Slow Release 9:30pm-11pm

• Thursdays: Queer For Your Ears moved up to 9:30pm-11pm, Garage Pressure 11pm-12:30am.

• Saturdays: Bambu Hut (4-6pm) & Merchants of Sound (6-8pm) extended by half an hour following departure of Musicophilia.

• Sundays: Another World 2-3pm, The Jazz Cats 3-4pm (replacing Gospel Sound), Across The Tracks 4-6pm (replacing The Velvet Doghouse)

We offer a huge congratulations for the following achievements.

• Another World with Siobhan Moran-McFarlane won Best Current Affairs Program at the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia Awards Dinner.

• Crossing The Line, Found Underground and Finding Voice National Feature Documentary by Mick Paddon were all nominated as finalists in their respective categories.

Volunteers/Presenters Eastside Radio provides an excellent opportunity for people looking to gain experience in the media, music, arts and journalism industries. Our Training and Induction program held three times a year allows approximately 30 new volunteers out of 60 that apply to undergo an intensive five sessions held over two weeks. Our Work Experience students spend an exciting week at the station performing many behind the scenes as well as on air roles and the station continues to rely enormously on the support our tertiary interns provide both from local universities as well as from overseas. We’re always so proud to see many of our volunteers and interns

go onto roles in various sectors such as the Community Radio Network, The CBAA Digital Radio Project, Sky News, 2SM, ABC, SBS, FBi, 2SER and Universal Music. Congratulations to both Melanie Christodoulou as 2018’s Marg Barry Award Winner as well as Jim Pennell for his 20 Years Service to the station.

Technology (Patrick Spedding) We had 3 main areas of focus for technology in 2018: 1. Improvements to Station Internet - NBN 2. Improvements to Website – Listener Engagement tracking 3. Extending listener options for engagement – Eastside iOS App

1. NBN: internet and telephones In order to help ‘future-proof’ the station, it was becoming increasingly important to improve the station’s technology, including internet and phones. After a lengthy evaluation and considerable debate with telecommunications vendors, we have been able to secure an NBN package with VOIP phones, to replace the ageing and slow internet and phone infrastructure in the station.

2. Improvements to website Monitoring of the Eastside website traffic via Google Analytics and a suite of custom-developed dashboards has highlighted the need to optimise the website to improve performance, accessibility and ease of use. Click throughs and bounce rates clearly demonstrated that listener engagement was low and could be improved.

3. Development of Eastside App for iPhone/iPad devices To better enable listeners to access Eastside via mobile devices (for example, out of area listeners, or listeners in the car/on public transport), we developed a prototype mobile App. Without any promotion, the App already has almost 50 users, and feedback has been very positive.

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/eastsidefm/id1434038795?mt=8

Christmas Party In 2018 we celebrated our Christmas party at the Owl House - as usual it was a fun event. It would be good to see more of our presenter and volunteer community attend the events and meetings the station hosts to strengthen our internal relationships and ensure that everyone gets to know one another, so if you have any suggestions on for this year with that in mind, please let us know!

Acknowledgements The Board would like to thank all the individuals and organisations for their support during the year.

The businesses and events that provided prizes and giveaways The businesses that provide year round discounts to our supporters The volunteers who help the station function The Mayor and Councillors and employees of the City of Sydney The councils of Woollahra, Randwick, Waverley & Botany ACMA, AMRAP, APRA/AMCOS & The CBAA The Community Broadcasting Foundation The over 100 volunteers who produce and present programs The hardworking staff Finally, thanks to our listeners, especially the supporters, without whom we would have no reason to exist.

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