RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

win the cooperation of the Council. 16 ) C) Even where stations have a seemingly strong commitment to local involvement, most staff members come from a rather narrow socio-economic-educationai bacKground: typically urban , university-educated , non-ethic minority , and far more often male than female . That background appears to make it difficult for most local stations to see what might need coverage among rural, working class , ethnic communities or such social communities as homosexuals and f emimsts . The greatest exception to that rule is the group of five Australian public radio stations which make up the Progressive Radio Association (3CR and 3RRR Melbourne, £XX Canberra , 2RSR Sydney and 4ХХХ Brisbane) , which actively promote involvement by feminists , homosexuals , ethnic groups , etc. , and some of which have women in management positions . D) A number of community service broadcasts seem to be the product of a given mdividual at the station , usually someone in program production or engineering who conceives of an idea and carries it out. The engineers mentioned in A) above are examples; so are a disk jockey at U.K. Independent Local Radio station Radio Tees who đeveloped a summer workshop for teen-agers ancf a producer at STAD Amsterdam who takes his group to clmics , exhibitions , etc. There's little mdication of station management generation of ideas, or of management's bemg all that firmly committed to the ideas of others . Thus , if an ‘active' producer or engineer leaves the station, or if the budget gets a bit tighter , there's no stationwide commitment to preserve the effort. E ) Local managers often seem to be cautious m terms of experimentmg with different approaches , especially if those approaches might nsk sounding 'unprof essional.' Perhaps they aspire to be managers at a larger station or network , and want to be seen as ‘capable managers,' which may mean capable of keeping thmgs tidy and ‘professional' . Perhaps they simply become exhausted after trymq themselves or trying to induce others to ‘innovate,' and fmding that it can be a time-consummg , of t-cnticized task . F ) Perhaps for the reason cited m E ) above , very few local stations have community access programs , although many national stations m European nations do so . But several of the Australian pubhc radio stations not only have access , they also train commumtv members and attempt to get them mvolved m broadcastmg on a contmumg basis . Where commumty volunteers have played a major role m program-makmg , there sometimes have been clashes between the full-time staff anđ the volunteers over ‘proper' broadcast standards and over which

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