Scribd
Upload
43 views1 page

4ZZZ: A Retrospective

Derek Barry, 2007

Uploaded by

Sass Morrissey
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
43 views1 page

4ZZZ: A Retrospective

Derek Barry, 2007

Uploaded by

Sass Morrissey
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

4ZZZ: a retrospective

by Derek Barry (3 May 2007)

4ZZZ is a community radio station that occupies a


unique niche in Brisbane’s media scene. Founded in
1975, it has now survived almost 32 years of
broadcasting despite not having any government
funding or commercial advertising. It was the first
station on the Stereo-FM dial in Queensland and it
was the product of a unique social environment
where the federal government was socially
progressive and the state government was socially
repressive.

4ZZZ grew out of the idealism of the radical student movement of the
1960s. It was founded by students at the University of Queensland
interested in new media. These students were already using printing
presses to get their messages out. Their publications raged against the
Vietnam war, gerrymander in the Queensland electoral system and civil
libertarian concerns with freedom of speech.

Queensland had been ruled since 1959 by a Country Party led coalition
which censored books and movies, banned political demonstrations and
controlled written publications. They protected their power by using State
Special Branch to keep watch over "subversives" and taking vigorous police
action. Student publications had a short life span due to the law that made
it illegal to circulate printed material without a permit, unless the material
contained advertising or religious matters.

The attraction of radio was that it was under federal not state control. In
1972 the Labor party swept to power federally and introduced a wave of
reformist legislation. Jim Beatson was an activist who became aware of a
move to promote community radio in Sydney. Beatson had lived in the UK
in the 1960s and saw how FM was transforming radio. Australia was slow to
move to FM and the government thought it was a passing fad. Activists
such as Beatson worked with the hifi industry to show the government they
were wrong.

Beatson got involved in a working party on public broadcasting while UQ


students lobbied the new government for an FM licence. They fought
successfully against an industry proposal to locate FM in the UHF band
instead of the internationally accepted VHF band as UHF receivers would
have been prohibitively expensive for the new station’s intended audience.
The Minister finally announced he would license 12 additional stations which
would be campus-based educational licences. 4ZZ (the extra Z was later
forced on them by government legislation) based at UQ, was among them.
They quickly built a makeshift studio in the Student Union building.

But the government was slow in handing out the promised licence. The first
fully licensed public radio station 2MBS-FM went to air in Sydney in 1974.
11 more would follow suit in the next 18 months. But the situation became
more of a concern through 1975 as the Labor government was in crisis and
likely to collapse at any time. 4ZZ knew a new government would not look
on a radical youth station as favourably. On 11 November 1975, the Labor
government was sacked. The new acting Postmaster General, Peter Nixon
reviewed the licences and decided in this case that Labor’s policies would be
upheld. Effectively he gave 4ZZ the right to broadcast, albeit on
micropower.

4ZZ first took to the airwaves at midday, 8 December 1975 on 105.7 MHz
with DJ John Woods at the microphone. Woods was a former Channel 9
journalist and sports reporter and his three minute introduction of the
station argued it was an important act of free speech. He then played the
station's first music - The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. Pete Townsend’s
song about revolution was an apt metaphor for the new station.

As well as music, 4ZZ had a strong newsroom with


paid journalists. They became involved in many of the
issues of the day such as East Timor and more local
matters including the fire-bombing of the Brisbane
Whiskey-a-Go-Go nightclub and the ongoing endemic
police corruption. They broke what became an
international story when Queensland police and a
naval vessel raided a remote hippie community in Cedar Bay, incognito and
without warrants. They destroyed possessions, set fire to buildings and
arrested many in the commune. Police handouts painted it as a routine drug
raid to compliant Brisbane media. 4ZZ told the real story after talking to
witnesses in Cairns.

After three years in probation the station was granted a full licence in 1978.
They also earned the right to broadcast on full power. They placed a new
transmitter hut and mast on Mount Coot-tha (Brisbane’s highest point),
changed their call sign to 4ZZZ and their frequency to 102.1. They were
now a very visible presence in Brisbane’s media landscape.

4ZZZ’s penchant for trouble-making meant they were a constant thorn in


the side of authorities. On air language and taste raised hackles that saw
their licence needing to be renewed at regular intervals. It was against the
law to say the word "fuck" on air and the station ignored this by playing the
Dead Kennedy’s "Too Drunk to Fuck" and Marianne Faithful’s "Why D’Ya Do
It". A fringe organisation called the Society to Outlaw Pornography
monitored the station and complained to the Australian Broadcasting
Authority about 4ZZZ’s "obscenities" in 1981. 4ZZZ got the case dismissed
and made it legal to swear on Australian TV and radio.

In 1983, the station broke the story of the Boggo Road Prison riots.
Conditions in the jail were deplorable. Prisoners went on hunger strike to
protest government inaction after a food poisoning outbreak hospitalised 30
inmates. Because a journalist at 4ZZZ, John Baird, was part of a Prisoner’s
Action Group, the hunger strikers refused to speak to any media except the
station. They smuggled a tape out which was played on air. The tape
revealed the true conditions in the prison. The coverage led to better
conditions and eventually the closure of the jail after the Kennedy Royal
Commission of 1987 found conditions there to be unhealthy and inhuman.

4ZZZ saw off its arch-enemy Joh Bjelke Peterson who resigned in 1987
after 19 years as state premier. His deputy Bill Gunn launched the Fitzgerald
Inquiry to investigate the serious allegations that were emerging about
Queensland’s Moonlight State. Its report blew the lid on the sleaze that was
at the heart of Joh’s government and its corrupt police force.

4ZZZ had problems of its own to deal with when the UQ Student Union was
taken over by a hostile right-wing group. In December 1988, new UQ
Student President Victoria Brazil evicted the station from its premises. Her
group also shut down the radical newspaper and defunded most
"progressive" activities. After a sit-in at the studios, 4ZZZ eventually
regained the airwaves but accepted the inevitable and moved to temporary
accommodation in Toowong six months later.

After three years in cramped surroundings, 4ZZZ moved to their current HQ


in the Valley in 1992. The station was forced to re-invent itself in the 1990s
after the Nationals finally lost their hold on long-term power. The station
became a world music promoter, bringing rare acts to play live in Brisbane.
But it remains forever financially strapped. 4ZZZ relies entirely on three
income streams: subscribers, promotions and events. All staff and
volunteers must be subscribers.

Many of its early staffers have moved on to bigger things. Jim Beatson went
on to work at the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia. Marion
Wilkinson and Amanda Collinge are respected national journalists. Stephen
Stockwell is a lecturer in media at Griffith University. Andrew Bartlett is now
a parliamentary senator. Now fully grown into adulthood, 4ZZZ enjoys a
good reputation in the industry. But it still proclaims itself as an activist
organisation with its longstanding motto of AGITATE, EDUCATE, ORGANISE.
4ZZZ continue to challenge the status quo, 32 years on.

You might also like

pFad - Phonifier reborn

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


Alternative Proxies:

Alternative Proxy

pFad Proxy

pFad v3 Proxy

pFad v4 Proxy