lambert After the Review ... Jill Lambert Station Manager, 5UV Adelaide University The University of Adelaide in its Review into the Department of Continuing Education in 1983, agreed to continue to operate Radio 5UV and to retain ownership of the broadcast licence while asking the station to increase its efforts to expand the level of core educational programming. The University promised increases in the level of its maintenance grants and in production and technical staffing levels, declaring the station an autonomous unit quite separate from the Department of Continuing Education, and responsible to its own Management Committee. The three years since that time have been a period of consolidation, of implementation of systems and structures, of the erection of a new antenna and of the purchase of new equipment under a recapitalisation grant from the University of $300,000. The possibility of an accommodation move from our present troglodyte existence where we compete for decibels with the rumble of the air conditioning plant room have gladdened hearts and started to pose a whole new set of questions. The proposed new site would give us a ground floor shop front position on one of Adelaide's most attractive boulevards. Visibility - always a problem in public radio - would increase dramatically and, in almost direct proportion, so would the University's requirements of the station. Radio 5UV has over the years acquired a reputation which places it as a close competitor to ABC's Radio National ... the steady flow of members of 5UV to good positions in the corridors of the ABC at Collinswood and elsewhere in Australia bears this out. 64 Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 1986, 2(2) What are the University's expectations of their station? Continuing Education • most important - the continuing education of graduates to ensure their credibility and awareness of new developments within their discipline A Public Relations Vehicle • making the University accessible to the general public • destroying the ivory tower image • "humanising" Academics • suggesting that the University is interested in all - not just those who are University material. Community Involvement • a public demonstration of the extent to which research and development benefits all What are the public misconceptions of a University based station? EITHER Student Radio - regarded as noisy, self indulgent prattle but acknowledging the interest factor of emerging ideas, and the flashes of stunning creative and exciting radio. OR Course based - "Open University" type of radio, with enrolments and supportive literature. How does 5UV define educational programming? For the ABC it means pretty specific aids to learning/knowledge series. For the commercial stations - almost any information of interest. For our campus based educational radio station, it is a mix of these - aiming high at certain times of broadcast for those already tertiary qualified, and demystifying the specialist to encourage the joy of learning for those who have not had that advantage, at others. In order to overcome public misconceptions, and to fulfil the public relations and community involvement requirements, 5UV maintains as far as possible with its limited resources, a publicity campaign through the other media. This is one area which suffers from working of necessity, to a tight budget. Lambert 65 Financing a campus based educational radio station As available resources to all universities become more and more scarce, we are having to look at ways and means of earning a substantial proportion of our running costs ourselves. At this time we operate to a budget of around $400,000 per annum of which the University provides approximately half in the form of core staff salaries - for those of the Director, two producers, one administrator, one accountant and one full and one half time technician. The initial concept of "Friends" donations is starting to weaken as the station moves from the "warm and fuzzy new and great idea" image, to that of a professional organisation, providing a new good service. Inevitable, over a period of fourteen years Although we sustain a level of around 1000 Friends it is a relatively small portion of our earnings - and likely to become smaller. In addition, the review into the Department of Continuing Education determined that although we should sustain our present access users, we should not encourage further users. There are now three other metropolitan stations which have undertaken the community role once inherent in our promise of performance. Some campus based radio stations, such as 6NR and 6UVS in Perth make between $100,000 and $150,000 per year in sponsorship, much of this from sponsored sports events. However, 5UV has decided that all sponsorship must be carefully considered as our more specifically educational programming does not sit easily with sponsorship announcements, and our listeners do not like them. We therefore operate at around the $10,000 per annum mark. So where does our money come from? Increasingly, from other tertiary institutions who buy educational programming time from the station, and from entrepreneurial activities such as the recording of conferences and subsequent sale of cassettes. This has the added advantage of providing potential program material as well. Continuing education in the form of update programming for professional bodies is also a growth area and has proved attractive in the light of the immense amount of reading practitioners require today in order to remain credible. On the classical and specialist music side, 5UV has done such as enormous amount of work promoting Australian music and musicians, that we are exploring the possibilities of "benefit" concerts from those organisations we promote, in addition to the increasingly arduous annual public appeals 66 Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 1986, 2(2) which take shape as in terms of team spirit and innovative broadcasting, than in cost effective revenue return. Public Radio has to be exceptionally flexible in programming terms in order to provide the alternative listeners are looking for ... it is going to have to use that flexibility to good use on the income earning side in future. 5UV has little doubt that it will meet the challenge. Please cite as: Lambert, J. (1986). After the Review ... Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 2(2), 63-66. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet2/lambert.html