Page 18 - AdNews May-June 2020

Agenda
that are only possible because we’re part of the local community, with deep relationships and emer- gency contacts on the ground.
“Our teams are used to broad- casting live, so they’re highly skilled at operating in pressure cooker situations.
“We’ve heard stories across the country of how stations are run- ning programs to support mental health and helping to promote small businesses that are still trading and open for business. One network has even provided an ecommerce solution to help local cafes take orders.
“Listening goes up whenever there’s an emergency. For adver- tisers, radio is an obvious pick when there’s uncertainty. During the pandemic, with trading restrictions changing at short notice, networks in some cases have received an advertising brief and got a message to air the same day.
“That’s the power of radio, so it’s frustrating that our longer term ability to keep serving our audi- ences in this way is under threat with the drift of advertising reve- nue to global digital platforms.
“Radio is a great survivor and we’ll keep adapting.”
The smoke
Floods in one part of Australia, drought in another. A year after the Townsville floods, the bush- fires came.
Unlike the flood, the bushfires were expected.
“Everyone was preparing but when it did happen it came fast and bigger than anyone antici- pated,” says Mike Crowhurst at Port Macquarie, NSW, the general manager, mid north coast, at Southern Cross with Hit 102.3 and Triple M 100.7.
“That was on a Friday after- noon and about three o’clock, we decided that both stations would go local, more out of precaution. We were talking with the RFS (Rural Fire Service) about where the situation was heating up, the spot fires starting to take control.
“We realised pretty early on, in the first hour or two, that things were getting extremely serious. It was getting out of control.”
“Radio shines in
a crisis and this last year we’ve been hit with the triple whammy – drought, bushfires and COVID-19.”
Joan Warner
Crowhurst contacted engi- neers and the content and news departments. The local stations came off network programming and stayed local.
“We had the phone lines which go to network programming diverted back to us to ensure that we could take local calls,” he says.
“People were calling to give us updates on where potential road closures were happening. We had the showgrounds contacting us about people bringing their horses and livestock in.
“Basically we became the com- munication epicentre for the local people to get information and fol- low stuff up.”
More calls came in than those going to air.
“We didn’t want to be broad- casting anything that wasn’t proven or advised first,” says Crowhurst. “We’re always very cautious but trying to get people peace of mind.
“As the night went on, it became obvious this wasn’t going to be just fires that would be con- tained and everything would go back to normal.
“About 10 o’clock we made the decision locally that we were going to single cast both our sta- tions over one. So that I could ensure rotation of all my staff.”
That meant six hours on, six hours off. Special local news