Community Radio Shown To Be Doing The Heavy Lifting in the Australian Music Ecosystem

Written by 3MDR on July 30, 2025

‘Amplifying Diverse Voices, Celebrating Identity, And Demonstrating Impact’: Unpacking The Cultural Weight Of Community Radio

~ Inside the three-year national project mapping community radio’s tastemaker impact on the Australian music industry ~

At a time when the scales are tipping to favor digital discoverability, and Australian music faces persistent under representation against the swarms of international imports on mainstream radio, Associate Professor Shane Homan’s keynote at the Regional & Remote Music Summit arrived to help pinpoint what’s happening from inside the belly of the beast.

Presenting early findings from the Community Music Radio: Building The Music-Media Ecosystem project, a three-year Australian Research Council (ARC)-funded study coming to completion this year, Homan painted a timely portrait of a sector that has long punched above its weight, but is now at a crossroads.

The project, led by researchers from Monash and Griffith universities in collaboration with the Community Broadcasting Association Of Australia (CBAA), APRA AMCOS, Creative Australia, and more, aims to quantify the cultural and economic contribution of community music radio to the national music industry.

Methods to achieve this include fieldwork at 10 case study stations, artist and industry interviews, an AMRAP case study, and economic modelling using sector data and listener surveys.

With 450 community stations across the country and close to five million weekly listeners, it’s a network that quietly does heavy lifting in the Australian music ecosystem, and after three years of continuous study from Homan and his team, we’re on the brink of receiving the all-encompassing report within the year.

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