AdvertisementSaveYou have reached your maximum number of saved items.Remove items from your saved list to add more.ShareAAAInside Sydney community station fbi.radio’s Redfern headquarters, there is a room full of shelves packed with CDs, and the walls are covered in posters of bands, gigs and former fbi.radio crew. The receptionist is rocking a voluminous mullet and patchwork tattoos, taking calls on a landline.In booths, equally edgy-looking presenters are talking on air or preparing to interview musicians to satisfy the station’s aim of playing 50 per cent Australian music, half of that from Sydney.Although the airwaves dominated by mainstream FM music and AM talkback stations, Sydney community radio stations such as fbi.radio and SURG FM are achieving something any station would envy – attracting loyal young listeners.Remember these? Some of the rows of CDs at fbi.radio. Audrey RichardsonTommy Boutros (left) and Jasmine Telfer inside fbi.radio’s station in Redfern.Audrey Richardson“What we do here at fbi is something that no other community radio station does, and that is that we tailor our content specifically to the youth audiences, and we make sure that certain percentages of our music come from local areas,” fbi.radio’s music and programming director Tommy Boutros, says.“We have our finger on the pulse,” fbi.radio’s office and volunteer manager Jasmine Telfer adds. She and Boutros are two of five paid employees at fbi.radio, while about 300 people volunteer at the station. “Pretend it’s like a race – we’ve always had that head-start … when we look back on artists, or even the city library, you pick up a CD, like, ‘Oh my god, they’re huge now, and they started here’.”AdvertisementThe list of names that were first played on fbi.radio airwaves includes Flume, Genesis Owusu, The Kid Laroi, Courtney Barnett, Sampa The Great, Julia Jacklin and The Presets.An fbi.radio audience report examining the second half of the 2024 calendar year revealed the station experienced 14.3 per cent growth in weekly listeners, going from 140,000 to 160,000 in six months. (Commercial radio stations have ratings compiled by media measurement company GfK over eight surveys a year, while community radio has to gather its own.)More than a third of that growth came from young people aged 15 to 24, while the number of overall first-time listeners to the station increased by more than 11 per cent.Youth audience growth at fbi.radio isn’t an anomaly – young people already make up a large slice of community radio listeners. Experts say it’s a move towards embracing the careful curation of tastemakers while rejecting repetitive AI and algorithms.A polaroid wall inside FBi Radio headquarters.Audrey RichardsonAccording to 2023 data from the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia released in a May report, young people aged between 15 and 39 comprise 46 per cent of community radio listeners. Listeners aged 15 to 24 were also the most likely to discover an Australian artist from community radio.AdvertisementCBAA’s music director Andrew Khedoori says community radio has always been popular as a local connector, but the report suggests listeners have now begun tuning to it to discover new music. “Streaming has been this infinite library and [was] really attractive to people for a long time, but I just think that there’s this little turning of the tide at the moment,” he says.“We’re really far down the line in the digital era, and now we’re just in this sort of phase of pollution … people want to feel a little bit more grounded; they want to have a more authentic experience and connection with culture.”Calista Burrowes (left) and Lucy Horton in SURG FM’s station, inside the University of Sydney.Audrey RichardsonOver at the University of Sydney, Lucy Horton leads the photographer and I down three flights of stairs beneath Holme Building to where SURG FM operates. We enter a small, windowless room tinted in lavender lighting where Calista Burrowes is wrangling a Spotify playlist while the station is on university break.“We have a lot of Sydney-based artists on our playlist – a lot of local, smaller groups, bands, solo acts. I’ve got Smusko, Lily B on here, but we also have a mixture of older, global music as well because we know people tend to enjoy that; we have a lot of, I guess, old heads at the studio,” Burrowes says.The walls inside SURG FM’s station.Audrey RichardsonTo keep the station popular for those who don’t tune in live, Horton says SURG has begun hosting more live performances and is re-uploading mixes on SoundCloud. Burrowes adds: “That’s how we seem to cultivate our audience. We can’t know for sure how many people at a time are listening, but we try and do our best to market ourselves to ensure that we do have a supporter base.”AdvertisementAs young people develop algorithm fatigue, Burrowes says SURG has become a domain to find curated music. “They’re searching for places where they can naturally and organically come across new music, arts and culture,” she says.SURG FM’s Spotify playlist.Audrey RichardsonAlgorithms and AI have already begun impacting the local music scene. Musician Aidan Sammut spoke out about following an AI-generated act on a bill at Newtown’s Bootleggers last week. Redditors have blasted the success of Josh Fawaz’s AI cover of Like a Prayer, which reached No.1 on Australia’s national airplay chart and is receiving commercial radio airtime.Horton says another particular flashpoint that galvanised young people was the “imminent death” of fellow community radio station 2SER, operating next to the University of Technology (although the station was ultimately saved by a reduced funding and staffing model).“Young people are very minded toward preserving what has served them and their community – that’s captured more than anything in the volunteer spirit of fbi and Surge,” she says.“It just feels like you’re part of something truly bigger than yourself, that’s so contingent on young people just doing it … 2SER did really spur that kind of urgency.”A Daft Punk poster above SURG’s DJ decks. Audrey RichardsonAdvertisementIt’s part of the reason Beat Kitchen Records’ Fernando Benavides has decided to launch his own community digital station, Centre Point Radio. Starting in October, Benavides’ station will be a monthly radio show running across multiple days, inviting local artists to perform in a space in Parramatta.“We’re making it a non-profit; none of us is really making money here. It’s volunteering, but I’ve also had a lot of people, friends, homies, who are down to get a part of it because they also recognise the value of community radio – even though it’s not for making money, it creates so much culture,” he says.Fernando Benavides at Centre Point Radio, Marrickville.Wolter PeetersThe reason young people are moving to community radio is that they desire community and a reason to slow down, Benavides says.“Connection in a time of social media exhaustion is super important because if it’s radio, if it’s live music, if it’s making a T-shirt, if it’s whatever, it’s connection at the end of the day … that’s why platforms like Nothing On In Sydney work so well – people are looking for that,” he says.Want to read more about Sydney’s live music scene? We’ve got you!AdvertisementSydney pub and agent apologise after booking ‘blatantly AI’ act for new music nightThink there’s nothing on in Sydney? 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