Fed up with a lack of local content on the airwaves, Adelaide radio personality and avid supporter of the live scene, Luke Penman has taken things into his own hands, gearing up to launch his own station.
Digital radio station play / pause / play – currently in its final day of crowdfunding - will be dedicated to Adelaide’s live music scene, playing 100% Australian music, including SA bands alongside acts who will be touring the state soon.
“If Australian radio stations aren’t playing Australian music, then who will?” Penman said.
“We can be doing more and we can be doing better.”
Penman said that airplay is essential in punters going out to gigs, with few stations unable to truly give the Adelaide scene the attention it needs.
“It’s quite common to have bands from Melbourne or Sydney come and play in Adelaide, but if they’re not on triple j’s radar, then they’re not really on anyone’s radar in Adelaide, and that suddenly becomes a huge problem, that we’re basically relying on triple j to do it,” Penman said.
“Triple j is fantastic for Australia music, they do a lot of great work, but they can’t have their finger on the pulse of Adelaide and they can’t be dedicated to Adelaide and that’s what I want to do.”
Play / pause / play will also feature artists introducing their music and telling listeners when and where they can catch them live.
“When people are listening to a radio station, they’ll give a song about seven seconds before they change the station, and it’s my theory that if you hear an artist introduce a song, you’ll probably stick around a little longer.”
The idea for play / pause / play dates back a few years, but it was only in the past 12 months that Penman got serious about it, opening up surveys to the local music fans; the results of which suggested a crowdfunding campaign was the way to go.
Those results were spot-on, with Penman’s Pozible campaign reaching its initial $10,000 goal last week, before being raised to $15,000 – all of which will cover music licencing for the first six months of operation.
That’s just a fraction of what Penman need to make the endeavours sustainable, though, estimating he’ll need about $100,000 – $120,000 a year to be able to cover the music licencing, marketing, his wage and more.
It’s a lot of effort, but as Penman states in the campaign, “the radio landscape in South Australia is broken”, and it’s something many fans also believe.
“At the end of the day, it really depends on listeners who love the station and are willing to chuck in a few bucks.
“I anticipate running an annual radiothon-style campaign, as the vast majority of community radio stations do around the country. A large percentage of the revenue for the station will have to come from that.”
Penman has a wealth of experience in broadcast and knows the local music scene well, honing his skills for the past five years at Radio Adelaide.
"A great example of grassroots action."
During his time there, the community radio station converted to a digital music library and moved from the University of Adelaide to Fresh 92.7, two massive developments that helped form the foundations of play / pause / play.
“Fresh is consistent - 24 hours a day, seven days a week, if you tune into Fresh, you know exactly what you’re going to hear and that’s something that is very much a commercial radio line of thinking.
“Depending on which time of day and which day of the week you tune in [to community radio], you might hear something completely different, which has incredible value and it means that lots of voices within the community get the chance to have their voice heard, and that’s incredibly important.
“I saw the difference between those two stations and those two different methodologies and said, ‘I think there’s something in the middle here that I can go and make happen.’”
Play / pause / play has already seen a wealth of support from the local scene, with artists West Thebarton, Neon Tetra, The Winter Gypsy among those supporting the Pozible campaign, and the state’s music body, Music SA, also praising the initiative.
“We all know that APRA AMCOS, ARIA and CRA are working together to enforce compliance of music quotas and it’s great to see that action taken at the top,” Music SA general manager Lisa Bishop told The Music.
“But Luke Penman is a great example of grassroots action.
“In SA there is a direct link between radio and live music and Luke’s recent survey shows that 96% of respondents said they like to be familiar with an artist before they see them live. This Internet Radio can get more South Australians into the gigs of local and touring Aussie artists.
“Community radio is doing a great job, and Fresh 927 really hit the spot for electronic artists but Luke’s initiative will cross over all sorts of contemporary genres.”
You can listen to a test rotation of the station now via the play / pause / play website and contribute to the cause via Pozible.
“Flick to play / pause / play, listen for 20 minutes and you’ll hear something that’s coming up soon; you might like it and you might want to go see it.”
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