It takes a lot of work to produce a radio show every week... Even with a team team team of three passionate and dedicated volunteers. Between David, Darren and I, we probably spend an additional ten hours a week, on top of our two hour show, on preparation or post production. On The Dotted Line [TDL], we deliver ‘Dotted Live’ every week, with Australian independent musicians playing live in the studio & having a chat about song writing, gigs, CDs vs streaming, instruments, the music industry, venues… Anything that seems relevant at the time.
We are passionately dedicated to enhancing access to underrepresented musicians to as wide a listening audience as possible and we focus on independent Australian musicians, through both the guests who play live on the program and the recorded music played on each show. The majority of these are local Hills residents, from 3MDR’s listening area, with some coming from other areas of Melbourne & Victoria, and occasionally from interstate & overseas. Very few of the guests, and recorded music played, receive air time on any other radio stations, community or otherwise. The performers are able to showcase their music and are prompted to promote their gigs, releases, how people can contact them / buy their music, their approach to songwriting, other projects they may have, anything and everything.
We also have a number of digital channels that we use to promote and celebrate each performance:
• A dedicated photography website, where high quality professional photos taken of each performance are presented;
• A Facebook page and Instagram profile, where every show is promoted and playlists are posted from each program. These platforms are also used to promote other relevant material posted by the local music community;
• A YouTube channel, where post-produced videos of the live performances, with post-mixed audio, are uploaded; and
• An amrap program page, where six months of archived shows are kept and weekly playlists and blog entries are found.
In 2018 we had 69 live in studio performances from 128 musicians, with an average of 5 songs / act which equalled 345 live songs put to air. This, and all of the above, led to TDL being nominated for a CBAA Award for Contribution to Australian Music by a Radio Program in May 2019. We made the finals and attended the CBAA Awards Dinner in Melbourne on Saturday 26th October 2019, at the Pullman Melbourne on the Park.
Our category was hotly contested and our fellow finalists all present amazing shows:
Contribution to Australian Music: Radio Program
- BRL (897fm, Perth, WA)
- Take One (Eastside Radio, Sydney, NSW)
- The Dotted Line | Dotted Live (3MDR, Melbourne, VIC)
- The Map (Edge Radio, Hobart, TAS)
- This Is Our Sound (PBAFM, Adelaide, SA)
I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of David, Darren and myself, to send out a HUGE THANK-YOU to all of the musicians who have ever come in to play on TDL... We wouldn't have show without you and we know how lucky we are to have a mini concert in the studio every week. Thank-you to 3MDR for providing us with a spot on the grid and our award nomination... We are most humbled... And also to all our listeners, subscribers, sponsors and supports... You folks rock!!
That's about all the talking about us I can muster...
Yours in community radio,
Ren
You can listen to the audio of our award nomination HERE.