CBAA 2022 Community Radio Award Winner Spotlight - BayFM

With the deadline for 2023's CBAA Community Radio Awards fast approaching the CBAA reached out to past winners BayFM about their outstanding performance last year, winning awards both as a station and for then Station Manager Phillip Shine. Ange Kent, the President of BayFM and Mia Armitage, BayFM Community Newsroom Executive Producer, were kind enough to share a range of insights into what went into BayFM's winning efforts as well as some advice on how to tackle the award entry process. Whether your station's a past winner or you're hoping to be first-time lucky we're sure this will be an interesting read for you.

If you haven't entered this year's awards yet be sure to click here and get started!

BayFM won multiple awards last year, including the prestigious Tony Staley Award and the Award for Excellence in News and Current Affairs Programming, as well as the Michael Law award for then Station Manager Phillip Shine. What did receiving these awards mean for BayFM and the winners?

BayFM's Community Newsroom has been shortlisted for the Excellence in News and Current Affairs Programming award several times and so winning the award became a goal. Every year our Community Newsroom Executive Producer Mia Armitage strove harder towards excellence in the staton’s news content and production, particularly when it comes to local news.

Our bittersweet golden opportunity to shine came when our community needed us most - when the Northern Rivers was devastated by floods and landslides in February of 2022. The event has since been described as Australia's second-worst natural disaster on record to date - but we are already preparing for more to come. 

The Community Newsroom produced a last-minute three-hour special via 99.9FM when all other telecommunication services had shut down. Our news team updated listeners on where they could get help and on how they could help if they were able, pooling all our contacts and media resources. Members and leaders in our community including our mayor, local state representative of parliament, chief of police and rescue services provided important information and reassurance. It was extraordinary. 

Winning this particular award was an amazing feeling because it felt like we had worked unbelievably hard to achieve it, yet at the same time the work was done very much in the moment, being real-time breaking news, and we were running on adrenaline with a good dose of fear. Our team of mostly volunteers came together exactly when needed and we managed to run the special on highly inadequate resources (phones were still down, including at the police station) yet we remained alert and kept the show going smoothly. It was therefore both humbling and gratifying for us to win this award and to be acknowledged by our peers. It was also highly significant as a symbol of appreciation for the dedication and resource-intensive work undertaken by the volunteer news team.

Winning the prestigious Tony Staley Award meant even more to us as it was an acknowledgement of the ongoing work undertaken by the entire station besides the newsroom in helping our community recover and cope with the unfolding disaster. One disaster simply begat another as time dragged on, for example, Byron Bay suffered its most devastating flood only one month after the first disaster. Our community was and still is traumatised and through BayFM, our volunteers feel more closely connected than ever, after a couple of years of fractured engagement owing to the pandemic. We all leant on one another for support and still do and the essential service offered by hyper-local community broadcasting has become more obvious than ever - we will do all we can to protect and enhance it. All our volunteers and the rest of our community have been celebrating this win all year and we won't stop celebrating until the award is handed to another deserving station this year. We were simply overjoyed.

BayFM’s Station Manager (2018-2022) Philip Shine won the Michael Law Award in 2022 and in his words, 

‘To be the recipient of the ML Award, judged by one’s peers, was a humbling and deeply moving experience for me. It is something that I  cherish: being in the company of former recipients is a great honour. Michael Law laid the foundations, it is up to us to ensure that community broadcasting prospers and continues its work toward a just and fair society.’

Since winning those awards what opportunities have opened up for BayFM?

We have certainly leveraged the honour of receiving these awards and have received more funding which we are very grateful for from the Community Broadcasting Foundation and the New South Wales Government. 

There is certainly an acknowledgment and an increase in pride from our local Community for their local community radio station. Our community has got behind us and have provided donations, more sponsorship and there has been an increase in subscribers to the station.

What advice do you have to stations considering entering the 2023 awards?

It takes a lot of time and effort to submit an award application so ensure that you believe the content you submit is worthy, informative, entertaining and reflective of your local community. 

It is also a good practice to get feedback from your management committee, program team, listeners and supporters of the station regarding the content you are going to submit. 

Will BayFM be participating in the 2023 Awards, and if so, are there any categories in particular that you’re aiming for?

Yes, BayFM submits awards every year. We are currently letting our broadcasters know that the CBAA 2023 awards are open and to put that submission into our management committee so we can support and approve the awards for submission.

We will be taking a united front on what we will be submitting to ensure that we are presenting the best quality applications from BayFM.