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Hear it in your own language - SBS Radio

Manuel Aroney.

Professor Aroney explains what Ethnic Radio is.

Created:

1994

Date Added:

26 June 2002

Source:

Making Multicultural Australia

Format:

mov (Quicktime);

File size:

--

Length:

27 secs

Transcript

PROFESSOR MANUEL ARONEY
Former member, National Ethnic Broadcasting Advisory Council and later, member of the SBS Board

Ethnic Radio was ethno-specific. Its strength was to keep the ethnic groups happy, to give them news, information, but also to make them feel that Australia and the Australian Government cared for them. But also to be didactic in many regards - to tell them about their rights in the Australian system and to give them advice with regard to all sorts of Government services. In that sense it had a multiplicity of purposes and was quite valuable in reaching a specific target audience for each language group.

CONTINUATION OF INTERVIEW AS TEXT

The National Ethnic Broadcasting Advisory Council (NEBAC) was set up to see if the ABC could accommodate ethnic radio... I think they were ordered to come in and talk to a number of "reffos" off the boat and it was sort of beneath them. It became obvious very soon that we weren't going to reach any decent accommodation with them. I said to them: "Your concept of Ethnic Radio is broadcasting Sheffield Shield cricket in Turkish or Greek". I said: "That's not our conception". We were clearly not going to reach a good accommodation which would maintain the integrity of ethnic radio. They were far, far too entrenched in their Anglo-centric ideas.

Interview for Making Multicultural Australia, 1994.