Fakt Tapt vid, the ACMA FoI, and how local is US radio really?

Above: the real Brisbane airport, early one morning in August 2024.

Welcome to Tapt Media, the new radio company in Australia that owns 2GB, 3AW, 4BC and 6PR, which came into being on 1 May. They own four heritage talk brands, two of which are #1 in their markets. I took a look at the company’s swish new website, and uncovered a few concerning things.

For a start - the company’s “hero video” has no video at all of Brisbane personalities, which doesn’t sound great for 4BC: a station that was once essentially shut down and turned into a rebroadcast of 2GB. But, worse, I discover the company has faked a video of Brisbane airport.

Local and trusted?

In early March, a little frustrated about the ACMA’s speed in invoking licence conditions about Kyle & Jackie O, I made a formal Freedom of Information request to the ACMA for ARN’s “representations” - the letter they sent the ACMA to argue against the licence conditions that the ACMA had proposed in November and still hadn’t put into place. They responded on Mar 11, saying they had to refer the FoI request to ARN - putting the new licence conditions in place on Mar 16 - but the FoI request rumbled on, with a legal deadline for ACMA to get back to me by May 4.

Yesterday was May 4, and magically, a response has come back. The ACMA has consulted with ARN; they’re removing some names and contact details for ARN employees (fair enough), but also (after ARN asked them to) removing information in specific paragraphs about “the nature of the program’s target audience and the audience’s expectations for specific content”, which are statements that “could reasonably be expected to have an unreasonable adverse effect on ARN’s business or commercial affairs.” I’m not entirely sure I agree with that.

ARN has asked for all of “paragraphs 13, 17 and 18” to be removed. The ACMA is suggesting that only “discrete statements within” those paragraphs should be removed. That now means that the (censored) document will be released to me… but only after ARN is given 30 days to seek Internal Review. ARN has already had 30 days to make submissions regarding this FoI request, but it sounds like ARN have a further 30 days to object to ACMA’s decision around it. If ARN object - and why wouldn’t they - then that means a further 30 days that ACMA has to reconsider, kicking this into July.

It should be noted that in the UK, a complaint about offensive language on radio on Oct 9 was investigated and adjudicated just two months later on Dec 15. Another complaint about bad language on radio on Sep 11 2025, was adjudicated on Feb 9 2026, taking just five months. However, the ACMA’s investigations are related in part to output from Aug 14 2024; and it took the ACMA until Mar 16 2026 to finalise action against the broadcaster - nineteen months to reach a decision that should, surely, have been made much quicker.

Classifieds

• In The Quarter Hour with Wade Kingsley: Brian and Tom, the bosses of Tapt, speak about their plans; Jacinta Parsons talks about James Valentine; and a deep-dive into a radio promotion called Underdogs.

• Supercharge your radio show with world-class prep: the right show prep delivered to you on time, EVERY day, without fail. Grab a £1 week-long trial of Show Prep and stop chasing round looking for things to use on your show, running out of time before the show, and trying to sight-read the newspapers!

• Tom Webster has written a long piece about the potential merger between SiriusXM and iHeartMedia. It’s very good, since it highlights a number of individual parts of the deal; but tackles, head-on, the “loss of localness” concern that many people have. As you’d expect, he’s done the research. In short - there’s really very limited local content anyway. Those days are long gone. Very much recommended.

• In Australia, the government has extended the suspension of the Commercial Broadcasting Tax for a further two years, until Jun 8, 2028. It’s been suspended since Jun 2025. The tax is up to $3,648 per AM transmitter; and up to $40,533 per FM transmitter - it’s based on transmission strength, and so far as I can tell almost all Brisbane broadcasts (both TV and radio) are at a lower strength meaning just 10% of this tax is charged.

• In Luxembourg, there will be a new FM station on May 5. And it’s in English. It’s called RTL Today Radio, and it “offers the best music, news, weather, and services in English”, aimed at international visitors, commuters and English-speaking residents. It’s an offshoot of RTL Today, an English-language website. You’ll find it on 93.3 FM. It launched online in March 2022, went to DAB+ in December 2025; and has nabbed an FM frequency from RTL Deutschlands Hit-Radio.

• In Ireland, three FM stations are also to go national on DAB+. The country’s had a mixed relationship with DAB; public service broadcaster RTÉ broadcast on it for a long while, but shut their network down in March 2021 after none of the commercial radio stations showed any interest in DAB broadcasting. Then, there was no DAB broadcasts at all (even if most cars available in the country have DAB preinstalled), until April 2025: this time, it was the commercial radio broadcasters doing a “trial” (it’s running until at least the end of this year, and covers 85% of the population). Will RTÉ be back on the platform? Ireland is also the only country I’m aware of with pirate DAB broadcasting, cutely described as “other” in Wohnort.

• Mentioned above, but worthwhile mentioning again - this Ofcom complaint is quite excellent. 26 minutes, non-stop, broadcasting just one word!

• AM deathwatch:

  • In Perth, 720kHz and 810kHz (ABC Radio Perth and Radio National) are now off-air, completing the switchover of those stations to FM (as well as DAB+). Only half of the radio survey numbers include the FM switch, which happened at the end of February. Even then, 102.5 ABC Radio Perth’s total weekly listeners are up by 6.6%; Radio National’s weekly listeners also increased, by 17%.
  • In Auckland, 531PI, a radio station for Pacific Islanders aged 40+, has switched from 531kHz to 102.2 FM (and the station is now calling itself PMN).
  • Also in Auckland, the BBC World Service on 810kHz went silent, after an infrastructure change at the transmission site meant it could no longer broadcast. The station had a few local segments produced by The Auckland Radio Trust.
  • In Poland, Radio Andrychów (a low-power radio station in Andrychów, a small town to the south-east of Kraków), left 1584kHz on May 1. It’ll be on 90.9 FM on May 20. It remains on DAB+ and online in the meantime. It used to carry network programming from Polskie Fale Średnie, but is to carry more local programming, and is now licensed to the library in the town.
  • In Australia, Vision Radio is ceasing three AM transmitters (Melbourne 1179; Adelaide 1197, and Perth 990) and will go DAB+ (and online) only. It’s an interesting exercise to wonder whether an owner of an AM licence needs to actually broadcast on it to retain that licence. Let’s just remind ourselves: in the capital cities, 39% of radio listening is not to AM/FM at all; and DAB+ is bigger than online.

Where I am speaking next

• The Podcast Show, London UK (May 20-21) - I’ll be keynoting at this event, as well as recording a Podnews Weekly Review. And moderating a panel.
• FWD, the Western Canada Media Conference, Kelowna BC (June 3-4) - I’ll be there; details tbc.
• Radiodays Asia, Jakarta Indonesia (Sep) - I’m usually a speaker at this event, and it’s a good one to be at.

Supporters

Thank you to the supporters below, plus Dafydd Furnham, Marty from New Yawk, Gavin Watson, Greg Strassell, Sam Phelps, Richard Hilton, Emma Gibbs, Jocelyn Abbey and James Masterton for being regular supporters.

If you’d like to support my work in any way, you can BuyMeACoffee - become a member to give regularly or just give a one-off coffee, or five. Here’s where to do that.

There’s a podcast version of this newsletter if you prefer that. I’m on Mastodon as @james@bne.social if you’re there too. And my website has more detail about who I am, and what I do, and whether I can help you further.

Selected bits from Radioland are in RadioInfo in Australia, and RAIN News in the US
Lesen Sie außerdem ausgewählte Artikel auf Deutsch in Radioszene