The power of community radio stations in reaching out to a particular sector of society cannot be overemphasised. The corporate and non-governmental organisation sectors have realised the power of community radio stations in reaching out to their target audience to achieve the desired response.

While this was meant to be a financial breakthrough for most community radio stations which are struggling to sustain themselves due to high running costs, there is a growing tendency to negotiate the broadcasting fees to near zero-rate under the guise of corporate social responsibility or cost sharing.

It has to be stated that community radio stations are not commercially driven, but serve communities.

They are already performing a social function and most of their revenue is ploughed back into the running of the radio stations.

To this effect, corporate social responsibility is already embedded in the model of community radio stations in the sense that they exist to contribute to societal goals as they already integrate environmental and social concerns in their day-to-day activities.  

Just as commercial or national radio stations, the only asset which exists to community radio stations is airtime. Through proceeds from airing commercial advertisements and sponsored programmes and other on air activations, community radio stations get resources for operational and administrative expenses which include maintenance of staff members who are mostly volunteers. While the costs might differ in terms of magnitude as compared to commercial or national radio stations, they are basically the same costs. Community radio stations spend money to be on air and there is no such a thing as free airtime.

Even after being given rate cards, some organisations still demand rate fees which are much lower while others demand free airtime to deliver their message to the masses. The question that might be posed is: Who is paying for your free advertisementss and programmes on the radio?

While most community radios accept these unfair rates or arrangements with the hope that they will keep clients or establish lasting relationships with them, they lose revenue which would have assisted in uplifting their broadcasting standards, staff and volunteers’ welfare and fulfil statutory obligations like licence fees.

While projects can budget without compromise all other running costs like travel for project staff, they lower the cost of communication but want to get maximum publicity at the expense of struggling community radio stations under the guise of cost sharing. While they put forward convincing arguments like encouraging community radio stations to own the messages as their own and share the cost of airing, they would have considered the sustainability of the radio stations first at project or budget formulation stage.

It has to be noted that cost sharing is commended, especially for public service announcements, it needs not to be imposed or taken as a precondition for business agreements. It needs to be in the spirit of mutual respect among equal partners and not principal to subject.

It has to be left to the discretion of the radio stations to decide based on the needs of the communities they serve. Looking at the lower rates these radio stations charge, those seeking services need to presume that they have already shared in the cost of airing. 

It has to be noted further that there are organisations which value the messages they want to deliver to their target audience and the impact of community radio stations by paying according to established rates or even higher. Then there are others who seek near free services by way of signing memorandum of understanding where clients impose huge demands on community radio stations and pay less in the name of partnership.

In some of these arrangements, people travel from far and wide to have free panel discussions on community radios to avoid parting with huge sums of money on national or commercial radio stations.

On the hands, community radio stations fail to utilise their power and advantaged position as gatekeepers of information dissemination and a critical player in development by accepting raw deals. They fail to recognise that they have direct impact on the communities they broadcast to with immediate response. Only if community radio stations understand that their work is already a social responsibility and their rates are already sharing in the costs of communication campaigns, they would have bargaining power and not settle for less. n

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