The Top End Aboriginal Bush Broadcasting Association is preparing to celebrate its 35th anniversary later this year. 

The not-for-profit TEABBA is Australia’s largest Remote Indigenous Media Organisation (RIMO). 

Its mission is to provide operational support and essential service for the 29 remote Indigenous broadcasting units in Aboriginal communities across the Top End of Australia. 

General manager Don Baylis, who has worked for the highly-respected radio network for 24 years, says: “We’ve been servicing remote communities for 35 years and are looking forward to enhancing and extending our services as much as possible. 

“We’re proud to be part of an organisation that does so much to improve remote community life.” 

TEABBA, which was launched in 1989, is governed by remote community members within its broadcasting “footprint”, which covers the Tiwi Islands, Groote Eylandt, West Daly, East Arnhem, Victoria Daly, West Arnhem and Roper Gulf regions. 

The footprint originally supported 26 communities, but the organisation has grown to cover 29 with additional re-transmissions sites at Jabiru, Katherine, Pine Creek and Timber Creek. 

TEABBA also has a national VAST satellite channel (921), online streaming app and social media platforms. 

Staff travel remotely to offer services such as outside broadcasts for community music festivals, sports carnivals, career expos and other national-recognition relevant events. 

Each region has multiple remote communities and each community has its own unique radio unit, which are called RIBS, remote Indigenous broadcast services. 

The RIBS have a paid position for a local community broadcaster who can broadcast in their local community or patch into the TEABBA Hub for broadcasts from across the whole network footprint. 

Most broadcasters will normally do their show in a mix of language and English. 

This incentive gives communities independence, employment opportunities and empowered radio ownership. 

The broadcasters are trained by the TEABBA staff on site, so they know and understand their own equipment. 

Training workshops are also held at TEABBA’s Darwin Hub for additional skill development and to understand how operations work at the remote Indigenous media organisation end. 

This helps forge a strong relationship between the RIBS broadcasters and the RIMO staff. 

TEABBA encourages all broadcasters to do follow-up media studies courses at the Batchelor Institute. 

Over the past few years, TEABBA has been upgrading all the technical broadcast equipment in the Hub and at every remote community RIBS site. 

The system uses a site synchronised WAN (Wide Area Network) to send out its audio assets, including music, marketing campaigns, sponsorship spots and important information, through its Hub system to the remote communities under its network footprint. 

Through the WAN system, all remote community RIBS sites are monitored on wall screens to ensure all services are working. 

If any services are down the site is easily identified. 

Then using the WAN technical infrastructure, the fault can be attended to and be rebooted from the Hub to rectify the radio service. 

TEABBA radio plays a vital part for the Northern Territory Government and Federal Government, as well as departments, institutes and agencies, to pass on important messages in English and language. 

The important messages and information can be broadcasted across the Top End’s remote communities within the TEABBA footprint or individualised for one specific community site or a group of regional sites. 

And TEABBA does something else just as important – it enriches community life, gives people a sense of ownership of their radio station and links those in remote communities to the outside world. 

Call the Top End Aboriginal Bush Broadcasting Association to get your name, products, important messages and marketing campaigns broadcast in communities in specific languages across the Top End. 

CONTACT 

Head office 

(08) 8939 0400 

teabba.admin@teabba.com.au 

Or contact General Manager Don Baylis at don.baylis@teabba.com. au for a private discussion.