Rtrfm 92.1 Ltd Annual Report 2018 Chair’S Message
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RTRFM 92.1 LTD ANNUAL REPORT 2018 CHAIR’S MESSAGE RTRFM 92.1 Ltd has delivered a surplus for the past two years and is in a position to build on that success. This has been a hard-won result by the Board, staff and volunteers, in particular former General Manager Stu Macleod. I take this opportunity to thank Stu for his dedicated efforts during his tenure with RTRFM. Running a community media company is a constant challenge, and if the rewards weren’t so great you’d be forgiven for packing it in. Our new General Manager, Karen Lee, who commenced in January 2019, already appreciates the rewards of working for RTRFM and we are confident that she is going to prove a superb leader. We delivered our first social impact study at the end of last year, which made the rewards – if they were ever in doubt – crystal clear. RTRFM is a beloved institution in our community. We play more local original music than anyone else, and our listeners love us for it. We have genuine conversations with people across society, and our listeners love us for that too. But most of all our listeners love us and support us because we, all of us together, feel part of something that is connected and true. In a world that spends far too much time yelling at one another this is precious. To be part of this company is to share in that love, that’s the greatest reward we each obtain. So let’s be sure to treasure the time and effort that members of our community dedicate to volunteering to bring RTRFM to life, whether it’s our presenters and producers, our supporters who give their time to pick up phones during Radiothon, or the artists who donate performances to help raise much needed funds to keep us on air. I also take this opportunity to pay tribute to those who volunteer their time to serve as directors of RTRFM, those who have done so since it rose from the ashes of 6UVS and those who will do so in the future. It’s a privilege and a responsibility to preserve the ethos and aspirations of what it means to be a for- purpose, independent community media organisation. We’ve started a new chapter in the establishment of the RTRFM Studios Trust. It’s an exciting project, a slow burn that will, in time, put the company on a new level. It’s going to be a fresh challenge, but I know we’re up to the task. Onwards! Rewi Lyall Chairperson, RTRFM 92.1 ON-AIR + ON-LINE RTRFM broadcasts through the FM and digital bands to more than a quarter of a million listeners each month, providing entertainment, education and enjoyment not just to the people of Perth, Western Australia, but to an audience which stretches across the country and around the world through online streaming. We rework and redistribute broadcast content via our website, from which almost 300,000 people restream shows, stories and podcasts each year. What listeners hear on RTRFM is hand-made radio, created with great care by a community of more than 300 volunteer presenters and a small team of paid producers and supporting staff and volunteers. Our 48 different shows each week tell local stories which have global relevance, and which contribute a progressive take on politics, environment, health, arts, culture, and social issues to the media landscape. Our music shows explore an astonishingly broad swathe of new music released each year as well as presenting music from throughout the last century, researched and lovingly curated by genre experts and music connoisseurs of all different ages and backgrounds. The past twelve months have been stable in terms of our on-air grid programs, with our late night off-kilter talks show The Midnight Special going from strength-to-strength, covering everything from female tradies to basketball films. Our Saturday breakfast show, Get Up Morning, continues to evolve, with a number of regular segments involving technology and football each week, as well as live music. 2018 programming highlights included a number of outside broadcasts from local events, and our International Women’s Day broadcast: a full 24 hours of women presenting music by women, the centrepiece of which was a panel discussion on The Mag between RTRFM’s Libby Noble, and local musicians Em Burrows, Ofa Fotu and Carla Geneve. A significant achievement was made by the well-crafted and popular linguistics program, Talk The Talk, produced and presented by Daniel Midgley, Ben Ainsley, and Kylie Sturgess. The show’s content and quality was recognised by the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia who awarded it Best Radio Program – Talks. A sustained focus on exclusive music content on-air and music video on-line paid off in 2018, with an average of three premieres per month in the second half of the year, including exclusive first listens to music from established local favourites such as Abbe May and Diger Rokwell, and up-and-comers like Lana Rothnie, Dumbleachers and Cuss. A significant presenter change occurred in 2018 when beloved breakfast host Caitlin Nienaber moved on to a dream job at Double J in Sydney after nearly four years as the voice of our weekday mornings. The station was fortunate to attract talented former RTRFM Drivetime presenter and radio journalist Taylah Strano to the role of Breakfast Presenter and Producer in late 2018. Taylah is making her mark hosting Breakfast with Taylah and endeared herself to listeners from the beginning with her fresh music selections and earnest interest in providing a platform for local artists to explain their work and meet their audiences through the airwaves. The show retains popular segments including Science with Commander Kat, the Friday Morning Mix, and the well-established Slightly Odway. Slightly Odway offers a multi-platform experience of local artists reinterpreting the songs of other local artists live in the RTRFM studios each Wednesday morning, broadcast live on-air with video distributed via our website. The quality of the segment and the work of volunteer audio and video technicians Fabian Rojas, Terri Bellem and Matt Puccinelli and staff audio technician Eddie Curtis was recognised by the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia when it won the 2018 award for Best Online Content. We embraced the challenge of keeping pace with fast-moving audio content distribution trends by establishing a podcast directory featuring both aired content and extended segments suitable for download. This provides a contemporary distribution channel and opportunities for original content as well as remixing and repackaging which we can develop over the coming years. The 2018 iteration of The View From Here, RTR’s video series funded by the Community Broadcasting Foundation, allowed us to take a selection of WA artists and film them playing live in amazing WA locations, including Carla Geneve at the State Library, Nerve Quakes at the Perth Observatory and New Talk on the top floor of the South32 Tower. Filmed and edited by Cam Campbell and Lewis Potts, audio engineered by Mike Jelinak and mixed and mastered by Eddie Curtis and Will Backler, The View From Here continues to produced high quality video content which has been seen by more than 200,000 people over the course of the project. The series won a Community Broadcasting Association of Australia Award for Best Online Content in 2018; the second time it has received the award. LIVE EVENTS In The Pines, RTRFM’s flagship annual fundraising event in April brought together the best of Western Australian music and attracted a healthy audience of local music-lovers to experience its 25th iteration. New touches arranged with the support of our sponsors added to the special occasion atmosphere including the creation of a limited edition In The Pines beer by Feral Brewing, and In The Pines gelato from Chicho Gelato. Modernisation of the bar set up and other improvements helped the event run smoothly. Fremantle Winter Music Festival just keeps getting bigger, with close to 1800 people across six venues in North Fremantle making this one of our most successful events which also introduces many new people to the station, demonstrating an additional layer of benefit of our events program, beyond just raising funds. RTRFM added two successful new events in 2018: Many Styles, which brought Perth’s dance music community together at Si Paradiso in November, and Fremantle Spring Music Festival which continued our Fremantle infiltration into newer venues Rock Rover and The Aardvark. We also celebrated 35 years of Spoonful of Blues to a packed house at Clancys Fish Pub in Fremantle, and developed our event partnerships with the WA Maritime Museum to present the free live music series Harbour Sundays in February, and with the State Theatre Centre of WA to present Courtyard Club, a two- month long program of free live music for our listeners and new city-based audiences. Promoting events can be a precarious game and there are inevitably some less successful events in the annual program which need to be rethought. Distant Murmurs and the Radiothon parties both struggled to sell enough tickets in 2018, with the opening and closing parties for Radiothon splitting the audience and not producing a positive financial result. Overall, RTRFM’s 2018 program of 24 events contributed 27% of the station’s annual (pre-grant) revenue and produced a profit in excess of 100K. These events are an opportunity for outreach and audience development; translate our on-air and digital identity into live experiences; create social space in which we can meet our community face to face; and provide a platform for local artists to reach discerning music audiences and grow their support bases.