Located in WA’s deep south with a population of around 6,000, Denmark has always been known as a creative kind of town. Now home to one of Australia’s newest community radio stations – Denmark FM – station manager, Matt Sivyer, said he first started looking into the idea of putting local voices and local content on the airwaves more than a decade ago.
“The idea had been around for a while before I started looking closely at it in 2011 but no one had been able to make any progress with it,” Matt says. “I’m a bit of a nerd so I knew I could handle a lot of the tech stuff and audio equipment. I also knew it was something the local community really needed.”
But Matt had no experience in radio so he knew he’d need help. As luck would have it one of Australia’s most experienced radio directors was living in Denmark. Sue Howard, ex National Director of Radio with the ABC, had been with the ABC for nearly 30 years and to say she knew a bit about radio is an understatement.
In 2018 the pair began chipping away at the process of applying for funding and a radio licence and Matt says the paperwork was intense. Things slowly started slotting into place and Matt set the launch date for late 2020 but due to the pandemic things kept stalling. While hiccups when starting a new venture are normal, what wasn’t normal was what happened to the station’s much needed antenna.
“The antenna was on a truck coming from over east. Trouble was that also on that truck was $3.8 million dollars of drug money being smuggled across the border. A police intercept led to the truck, and all its contents being impounded. When the truck was finally released no one could find our antenna. It was weeks until it eventually turned up but it meant we couldn’t meet our launch date.”
Finally on October 4, 2021 Matt flicked the switch and Sue’s voice travelled across the airwaves to the ears of local listeners.
“Sue does the breakfast program and it was our first program to go to air. We had a drum roll and recorded applause before she announced we were now live on air. It was pretty exciting and there was certainly some celebrating.”
There have been many things to celebrate since then; the station received a nearly $50,000 grant to purchase generators and solar batteries so they could continue to transmit if the power went out. The money also enabled them to buy mobile podcast desks so local school children could create on-air content. Denmark FM has also been a finalist in several categories in the 2022 Community Broadcasting Association of Australia awards, which is designed to recognise innovation, programs and initiatives that make a valuable contribution to the industry and their local community.
“We run 16 locally-produced programs across the week and we focus on local people, local events and local news,” Matt explains. “Our music selection is predominantly local and WA based artists. We’ve also taken the decision to be the provider of positive content rather than be divisive and negative. We do supplement our content with stories pulled from other community stations but they’re always ones that relate to themes of interest to our town.”
The Denmark community has certainly embraced their homegrown radio station and Matt and Sue say the station has been extremely well received.
“We have people listening, not just on our 99.7 radio frequency, but also via our website where you can listen to any previous on-air content. We have Denmark expats listening from all over the world and we get loads of positive comments from people telling us they feel better connected. We recently had a lady tell us that listening to Denmark FM had made her feel less lonely. That comment touched us deeply and was quite a profound thing to hear.”
And in a time of global turmoil a local voice, that lives where you live, can represent a safe harbour. Community, connection, collaboration and care; this radio station may be 99.7 on the dial but it’s 100 per cent like a neighbourhood hug delivered across the airwaves.
