2MCE ready to take slack
BY SANDRA PARKER (The Western Advocate) 17 Mar, 2011
COMMUNITY radio stations are increasingly picking up the gauntlet and providing local content for their communities, according to 2MCE station manager Ross Larsen.
Mr Larsen was commenting on the decision by radio station 2BS to broadcast syndicated feeds from Sydney station 2GB from 9am to 3pm each weekday, in a move away from local programming content.“Without being derogatory to 2BS, local radio should be about localism,” Mr Larsen said.
“A lot of stations are part of major networks and take feeds from those networks.
“Community radio stations in a number of areas are picking up the gauntlet and running with it.”
Mr Larsen said the program changes at 2BS provide an opportunity for 2MCE to continue to be the local voice of the community.
“It’s what community radio is all about,” he said.
“We are a not-for-profit operation whose focus is the community. We need funds to operate but we have some very good supporters, and we are limited to five minutes of paid advertising per hour, unlike our commercial counterparts.”
Mr Larsen said 2MCE was about to increase its local sporting coverage to two hours each Saturday morning, from 7am to 9am. “We encourage sporting groups to contact us to allow us to promote their activities,” he said.
“We also provide a comprehensive local news service in conjunction with CSU journalism students under the supervision of a full-time editor, as well as a national news service.”
2MCE is now in its 34th year of operation, and operates live seven days a week from 7am to 10pm, when the station then takes a satellite feed.
“All of our announcers are volunteers from the community, some of whom have been with us since we started,” Mr Larsen said. “Localism and diversity in programming are the keys to our operation.”
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