Working to an International Audience (One International Broadcaster’s Tightrope Act)

ABSTRACT

Broadcasting to an international audience presents many challenges including story choice for audience interest; time zone differences and cultural sensitivity. These challenges are magnified when broadcasting to a range of countries simultaneously. This paper examines the requirements of an international broadcast through the prism of

The Breakfast Club, a live broad-range program that broadcasted live on more than a dozen Pacific and six Asian countries. The author, its Executive Producer/host discusses how the program navigated the many difficulties of working to such a broad audience, and how it dealt with new audiences that came on board during its tenure.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Refer to the submissions to the Australian government and the Lowy Institute documents in this paper.

2. Except where governments block the website.

3. RA stopped its SW broadcasts entirely in 2017.

4. In Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Fiji, Niue, Solomon Islands and PNG.

5. Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.

6. Vientiane.

7. In Denpasar, Bali. The program broadcasted for one hour each weekday on Paradise FM, 100.9 RRI.

8. Later to be called Radio Australia Today (to avoid the time dependent label) and then finally Radio Australia with Phil Kafcaloudes.

9. Australian Eastern Standard Time.

10. The Australian government’s international aid organization which has a presence in many of these countries.

11. Pacific Beat hosted by Geraldine Coutts, and In The Loop with Isabelle Genoux and Clement Paligaru.

12. Commercial Radio Code of Practice, Commercial Radio Australia, 2018, viewed on 25 July 2020, http://www.commercialradio.com.au/CR/media/CommercialRadio/Commercial-Radio-Code-of-Practice.pdf

13. The 1988 election, eventually won by the Liberal party’s Nick Greiner. The paper’s author was the station’s political correspondent for this election.

14. Legislative framework, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2020, viewed on 8 July 2020, https://about.abc.net.au/how-the-abc-is-run/what-guides-us/legislative-framework/

15. Fiji shuts down ABC radio broadcast, The Sydney Morning Herald, 15 April 2009, https://www.smh.com.au/world/fiji-shuts-down-abc-radio-broadcast-20090415-a6v2.html

16. Conducted by Fijian based group, Tebbutt Research http://about.abc.net.au/press-releases/radio-australia-connects-with-pacific-audiences/

17. See p. 13 Cultural Issues.

18. Which meant being on air from 2am to 7am in the morning Maldives time.

19. The Pacific literacy rate in 2015 was 71%, 13% below the world average. (Meleisea, 2015).

20. The Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands operated from July 2003 to June 2017.

21. In 1987, 2000 and 2006.

22. Every staff member on the program was an accredited journalist, apart from publicity and technical workers.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Phil Kafcaloudes

Phil Kafcaloudes is a writer, academic and journalist who presented the international breakfast program on Radio Australia for nine years. He worked in 12 countries, and hosted the ABC’s first English language program from China. In 2014 he was highly commended as International Radio Personality (Asian Broadcasting Awards). For a Churchill Fellowship, he studied journalism trauma training worldwide. He taught journalism at La Trobe and RMIT Universities in Melbourne, and in 2019 he produced the first national TV election program presented entirely by students. This program earned Phil the inaugural teaching award by the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia. He has written 3 books including Someone Else’s War, a novel about his grandmother who was a spy in Greece in WWII. It was published in Greek in 2012 by Psichogios Publications. He has just submitted a PhD on oral history storytelling, which included writing a play, Lady of Arrows, an adaptation of his novel.