City Sunbury, Victoria Branding 99.3fm Sunbury Radio Frequency 99.3 MHz | Broadcast area Sunbury, Victoria Slogan The Sound of Sunbury First air date July 1988 (1988-07) | |
99.3fm Sunbury Radio 3NRG (3NRG Incorporated) is a community radio station based in Sunbury, Victoria. The station broadcasts as "99.3fm Sunbury Radio" to its listener base.
Contents
History
The radio station was established as 99.4 Bulla FM in 1988, and in 1999, the station re-branded as 3NRG and changed frequency from 99.4FM to 99.3FM.
The then Australian Broadcasting Authority issued a radio license area plan for the Sunbury region on 22 June 2000, which determined that a community radio station license should be granted for the area. 3NRG was the only applicant, and was granted a permanent license to replace the temporary license under which they had previously operated, which had just expired.
The station was established to provide local news, information and community access to the township of Sunbury, in outer north west metropolitan Melbourne, as well as to the surrounding localities of Diggers Rest, The Gap, Couangult and Toolern Vale. The station has been involved with battle of the band competitions, broadcasting community events. In June 2000, entered the Guinness book of world records for the worlds longest DJ marathon.
In recent years, the ACMA has identified that 3NRG had been lacking in community engagement, membership growth, and in providing structured programming to meet the expectations set out within the stations community broadcast license. The new Committee of Management responded to these concerns at the end of 2015 and early 2016. The station management has engaged with local community groups, schools, local businesses, and people within the community to identify and structure content that will allow the station to re-engage with its listener base.
At the beginning of 2016, the organisation also invested significantly into rebuilding its broadcast infrastructure, website, and brand, as well as revising its membership and community engagement strategy to help felicitate the changes needed to provide a more interactive platform for the community to become involved.
Management
Community broadcasters are required (as part of the conditions for licensing) to have open membership policies. The management team of the radio station—as is typical of community based radio in Australia—is determined by the members of the association at an annual general meeting (AGM). The present 2016-17 committee of management of 99.3fm Sunbury Radio 3NRG are, as elected at the August 2016 AGM:
Demographic and target audience
Previously considered a rural town, Sunbury has experienced growth since the 1970s with the expansion of Melbourne's metropolitan area.
The average age of Sunbury residents is 36 years. Sunbury has comparatively higher rates of employment, higher average income and higher education than other areas within the Hume municipality and Melbourne. Sunbury's small ethnic groups have integrated well into the local community. The majority of residents identify as speaking only English, while the majority of ethnic residents also speak English as a second language.
Format
Listener surveys reflected the diversity within the community, however the overwhelming preference was for contemporary adult music including popular hits from recent decades, with short talk-back and interview segments intermixed between music.