Bay FM 99.9 came home with an armload of trophies from the 2022 CBAA National Awards held in Cairns on the weekend, including the highest award, the Tony Staley award.
The Bay FM Community Newsroom also won the award for Excellence in News & Current Affairs Programming and Bay FM 99.9 Station Manager for the last four years, Philip Shine, was awarded the prestigious Michael Law Award.
President Ange Kent and Community Newsroom’s Mia Armitage and Kate Payne accepted these awards on behalf of Philip Shine and the station’s 80 volunteers and staff members whose dedication and excellence in connecting with our community has been acknowledged.
Highest honour
Ms Kent said that to win the top two most prestigious awards, the Tony Staley and Michael Law award on the same night, is the highest honour a community radio station can receive. ‘For these awards to go to a regional station shows how important our local independent voices are for our community. And congratulations to Mia Armitage and the Community Newsroom who took out the News and Current Affairs Programming awards after being shortlisted for this award for many years.
‘Thank you to our hard-working volunteers, our community, subscribers, donors and sponsors who continue to support this incredible regional voice. And thank you to our elders who founded BayFM and gave us our first transmission in 1980.’
The 2022 Tony Staley goes to a community broadcasting station or initiative that actively promotes the values of community broadcasting in the areas of democracy, diversity, access and independence.
Bay FM 99.9 was chosen from 450+ community radio stations in response to the role the station played as a local emergency broadcaster communicating hyper-local and essential information in the March 2022 floods.
Philip Shine wins Michael Law award
The Michael Law award recognises Philip Shine as an individual who has made a sustained and outstanding contribution to the community broadcast sector. Philip Shine has been involved in community broadcasting for 35 years and has managed several stations including Eastside Bondi, 2SER Sydney and BAYFM 99.9. Philip Shine was also involved with the digital radio network and spent time as a board member of the CBAA.
Michael Law was the first president of the Public Broadcasting Broadcasting Association of Australia (now Community Broadcast Australia Association) in 1974. He is recognised as one of the founding members of community broadcasting.
The Excellence in News & Current Affairs Programming award won by BAY FM 99.9 Community News Room was for a three-hour special: Floods and landslides devastate the Northern Rivers which went to air in March 2022.
This is the fourth journalism award Mia Armitage and the Community News Room have won over the past five years not including an award for outside broadcasting a NSW Ballina Meet the Candidates forum in 2019.
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