Tuning in to the radio

Radio is a survivor. With commercial broadcasts in Australia dating back to 1923, it is the original 'always-on' medium, serving as the soundtrack to our commutes, kitchens and cultural milestones. At the NFSA, we don’t just collect and store audio; we listen in and preserve the thoughts and conversations of the nation.

2EA Greek broadcaster Sofia Catharios, 1975.

A cornerstone of this work is our Off-Air Radio Capture program. Radio is ephemeral – it’s made for the moment, not the century. To prevent these sounds from vanishing into the ether, we proactively record '24-hour slices' of the broadcast day. By capturing everything from breakfast banter and talkback debates to news bulletins and vintage jingles, we preserve a holistic snapshot of what Australians were thinking and feeling on any given day. This essential strategy adds approximately 18,000 hours of content to our collection every year.

This work is made possible through vital partnerships with the industry. From major commercial networks like ARN (Australian Radio Network) and SCA (Southern Cross Austereo) to public broadcasters like the ABC and SBS Audio, our donor stations recognise that today's broadcast is tomorrow's history. These collaborations allow us to reflect the true social diversity of our airwaves. Our archive preserves the full arc of multicultural broadcasting, from the very first 1975 Greek language broadcasts on 2EA to contemporary programming in Mandarin, Vietnamese and Hindi.

Our commitment to this heritage was recently spotlighted in our Radio 100 project. Celebrating the centenary of commercial broadcasting in Australia, Radio 100 explored the evolution from bulky valve sets to the transistor revolution. Through our podcast, Who Listens to the Radio?, we traced how the medium moved from maritime tech to the 'youthquake' of the Top 40 era, exploring its social and cultural influence on Australian culture over time. You can explore the Radio 100 online exhibition on this website.

TV: Small screen, outsize importance

Detail from a colour TV test pattern used by STW9 Perth, 1974.

Television was one of the most influential audiovisual forms of the 20th century. At the NFSA, our curatorial approach ensures that representative samples of TV broadcasts spanning news to entertainment, sport to advertisements, are collected and preserved for future generations. At the same time, we monitor the evolution of Australian TV from its introduction, through its heyday, and as the industry evolves in response to new competition from digital platforms.

The primary engine of this work is Newscaf (the Television News and Current Affairs Program). Established in 1988, Newscaf is our proactive system for documenting the nation as represented on television. Unlike our radio capture, which bottles a '24-hour slice' of the airwaves each day, Newscaf is a targeted, daily intake of the evening news bulletins that define our public discourse. Every night, the NFSA ingests primary metropolitan and regional broadcasts from the national broadcasters and major commercial networks, including the ABC, SBS, NITV, Seven, Nine and Network Ten.

This massive undertaking is made possible by the support of our donor networks. Because high-definition video files are technically complex, we don't simply 'record off the TV'. Instead, we work in direct partnership with broadcasters who provide high-quality, professional-grade digital feeds.

Beyond the daily 6.00 pm bulletin, curators use the Newscaf network to capture events of national significance as they break – federal elections, environmental crises or global sporting triumphs – from the original news reportage to the opinions and dissections by commentators and panellists. This allows future historians to see not just what happened, but the full spectrum of how different voices responded.

We recently celebrated TV’s impact on Australian culture with our 50 Years of Colour TV digital project, marking the half-century since 'C-Day' in 1975. You can explore 50 Years of Colour TV on our website.