The Broadcasting Resilience Program (BRP) is providing $20 million over 3 years from FY2022-23 to BAI Communications to improve the resilience of 107 ABC AM and FM broadcast sites across Australia.
The sites that will be upgraded as part of the program:
- are used for priority emergency broadcasting during natural disasters
- have no or at-risk backup power to run their transmission facilities if the power is disrupted
- are at greater risk of failure due to being in a bushfire area or other natural disaster.
There are 4 stages of work funded under the BRP.
- Stage 1 - establishing upgrades to standby emergency power facilities (e.g. battery or diesel generators) to 55 sites
- Stage 2 - providing backup program inputs (e.g. satellite links and/or dishes) to those sites at higher risk of failure.
- Stage 3 – flood mitigation
- Stage 4 - deployment of 5 state-based mobile recovery units to quickly re-establish broadcasting services in the event of outages .
The funding is part of the Australian Government’s Better Connectivity Program.
Completed Projects
The following map identifies the ABC site locations where the BRP construction work has been completed. Sites may have multiple work projects undertaken.
As at 30 June 2024, there have been 70 projects completed over 55 sites:
- 13 sites had upgraded standby emergency power facilities (navy dot) ;
- 27 sites had backup satellite program upgrades installed only (teal dot); and
- 15 sites had both emergency power facilities and satellite program upgrades installed (white dot)
