Community Media Sustainability Guide 2009 - launched by Internews!

COMMUNITY MEDIA SUSTAINABILITY GUIDE: The Business of Changing Lives (2009)

An Internews publication written and edited by Jean Fairbairn, and with the support of USAID and PACT

The Guide "is a 81-page publication covering topics such as incorporating new online platforms and using alternative energy to power radio stations, all with an eye to keeping the doors open in a sector not known for its profitability." (Internews)

The Community Media Sustainability Guide explores some of the challenges and issues facing community media as they struggle to survive in the twenty-first century. It is designed to be of value to community media practitioners and to donors, trainers, consultants, and others who provide support to community media in a changing environment. It draws on research and experiences of community media from all over the world to provide different perspectives on sustainability and approaches to achieving it.

The study focuses on financial sustainability as funding and finance are a major concern. The spotlight falls mainly on community media serving communities in developing countries, whose fortunes are so often tied to international donor support.

The full document is available here

*CMCS's Fellow, Kate Coyer was a member of the Advisory Committee of this study. (KATE COYER, PhD, is a research fellow and lecturer with the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, USA and he Center for Media and Communication Studies (CMCS) at the Central European University (CEU), Hungary. Kate has been producing radio and helping build community stations over the past twenty years)