New Australian broadcast rules - covering AI and kids

Above: in the “radio museum” in ABC Brisbane’s reception area, a cart with the “short” version of the Majestic Fanfare, the slightly anachronistic piece of music that precedes every news bulletin on ABC Radio stations in Australia. (I’m assuming “SHT” stands for “short”). “Radio museums in reception areas” will be outlawed when I am made King.

Australian broadcast radio content regulations are a little odd if you’ve ever worked in a different radio market.

As I wrote about in mid-November, the ACMA, the media regulator, is surprisingly toothless. It has just one big weapon - an Additional Licence Condition - which is a big, heavy weapon and only brought out if it has no other choice. And if those Additional Licence Conditions are broken, the only thing the ACMA can do is turn the radio station off, either temporarily or permanently. (There’s a fine, set by law, at currently AUD $165,000 a day (that’s US $117,000) which may be ludicrously large and/or pifflingly small - they can’t change it, anyway).

But, for content of radio broadcasts, there is a “co-regulatory framework”, where broadcasters (and their trade associations) work on their own codes of practice; and the ACMA registers these and assesses compliance. And for commercial radio - Commercial Radio and Audio has released a new code of practice which has just been registered by the ACMA. It’s the first since 2017. I’ve mirrored the codes here, from 2017 and 2026.

The press release tells us that there are two new things in there:

“Special care” at times when kids are most likely to be in the car - from 0800-0900 and 1500-1600. (This is clause 2.6). It’s not very clear what that means, but you can bet that this is in relation to the stuff that Kyle and Jackie O have been broadcasting during this timeslot. Without a clear understanding of what “Special Care” means - it’s not defined anywhere - this doesn’t seem to mean much, but at least there’s something there.

“AI transparency” - required disclosure for AI voices (as hosts or newsreaders), a move highlighting ARN’s “radio announcer” called Thy, which was a badly-produced, badly-written AI voice on CADA, and was never disclosed as being AI. The devil is in the detail: if ARN wanted to disclose that Thy was just an AI voice, then they could post somewhere nobody looks (like a page buried in their website), and the letter of this new rule is complete - as long as it’s been mentioned somewhere, it’s fine. This is something that the industry will need to grapple with; for interest, Apple Podcasts has a rule that AI must be mentioned in both audio and in accompanying episode notes.

Not mentioned in the press release’s headline, but much more welcome: the CRA will publish an annual report with a summary of all the complaints. Now, that will be quite interesting.

Changes to the code in full because I am that boring to compare the two

3.6: Corrections to news broadcasts must now be made “as soon as is reasonably practical” - there was no time guidance before.

5: There are changes to the formats for Australian music content for stations playing hip hop. These move from a 15% minimum Australian content to a 25% minimum for some reason; and accordingly, 25% of Australian music played on a Hip Hop station needs to be “new”, instead of just 15%. (CADA describes itself as “Hip Hip and R&B”).

10.1: There is some changing of words to clarify what a “complaint” is, and what “feedback” is. Particularly, “feedback” appears to be able to be ignored; but a “complaint” isn’t. (Remember to use the c-word, I guess, in your letter.)

10.2.2: It seems there is now a requirement for an online complaint form to be made available on station websites. The word “if” has disappeared. I wonder if this is a typo.

10.18: CRA will now publish an annual report containing a summary of all complaints.

11: A brand new section about AI transparency (as above).

Classifieds

• 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!

• In the UK, the new radio figures came out, and The Media Club with Matt Deegan has Adam Bowie on. Worth a watch if you’d like to know what’s up in the country. And what’s down. LBC, a talk station, has record numbers.

• Spencer Howson interviewed me on ABC Radio Brisbane at the end of last year about AM radio - and I managed to upset “Peter of Wavell Heights” so much that he sent a t-shirt to Spencer to pass it on to me. You can see Spencer waving it about in this YouTube video - it also, I gather, came with a big sheet of paper explaining Why I Am Wrong. I learn that apparently FM radio doesn’t work when it rains, which is probably new information to all of us! But isn’t it nice to see that some people feel so passionately about this stuff? (If Peter of Wavell Heights would like to get in touch, I’ll return the favour by buying him a DAB+ radio, so he can enjoy three times the choice of stations.)

• New York Public Radio has a new CEO. Christy Tanner has an impressive media background, if not any radio experience.

• I don’t think I mentioned that the CEO of RCS, Philippe Generali, is to step down at the end of this month. Philippe is an unusual CEO, in that he is often very visible at industry events (a large number of which they support). As you’ll see from the RCS banner above, RCS has been a supporter of many parts of the radio industry for years, and a lot of that is down to Philippe and his team. I wish him all the very best for retirement, and look forward to RCS’s next chapter.

• Last time, I mentioned that Sharnelle Vella, who has been doing ABC Radio Melbourne’s Mon-Fri breakfast show, was highlighted as a media trainer by her talent agency’s bio, which apparently shouldn’t be allowed. That has been changed, and now reads: “Sharnelle was highly sought after as a media trainer during her time in commercial networks”, so I’m happy to make clear that she is no longer a media trainer. The conflict of interest only really arises if she has ever interviewed anyone who she trained - but we don’t know whether she has. She’s off very shortly on maternity leave, anyway, so perhaps that’s one we can leave alone for now.

Thank you to a new supporter - Gavin Watson! Thank you, Gavin, much appreciated. I think he’s going to make a few changes to his support already and appear as a company, and in which case, we’ll pretend that he is brand new all over again and give him even more of a mention!

Where I am speaking next

• The Radio Festival, New Delhi, India (Feb 10) Today, I’ll be talking - on video - about the future of radio.
• Radiodays Europe, Riga, Latvia, (Mar 22-24) The future of audio is people-powered: The way people consume media is changing. James Cridland, the radio futurologist, takes a look at global trends in radio and on-demand. How will we listen - on which devices? How can we make our output truly unique? How do we do it in a resource-efficient way? And what part does video play in the future of audio? In this wide-ranging session, bringing together data from North America, Asia, Australia and Europe, we’ll learn why the future is bright - as long as we understand why our audience comes to us in the first place.
• The Podcast Show, London UK (May 20-21) - I’ll be keynoting at this event, as well as recording a Podnews Weekly Review.

Supporters

Thank you to the supporters below, plus 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. Or, alternately, here’s a way direct with Stripe.

I’m on Mastodon as @james@bne.social

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
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