About Noongar Radio

Noongar Radio

Noongar Radio 100.9 FM is Perth's only Aboriginal radio station — the voice of the Noongar people, the First Nations people of the south-west of Western Australia, broadcasting Indigenous talk and music across the Perth metropolitan region. Owned by Kuditj Pty Ltd, a not-for-profit Aboriginal organisation, and branding itself "Sounds Solid," the station gives Indigenous people a strong voice, strengthens Noongar culture and expression, and serves as a platform for First Nations people within the broader Perth community. Its callsign is 6NME — for Noongar Media Enterprises — and it broadcasts in English and Noongar.

Overview

Noongar Radio programs Indigenous talk and music: contemporary Aboriginal music from artists like the Yabu Band alongside traditional sounds, programs in the Noongar language, discussion of Indigenous culture and affairs, and the community information that serves Perth's First Nations population. Listeners hear traditional Noongar language and styles of music exhibiting diverse elements of Aboriginal culture — from the traditional sounds of Indigenous musicians like Yothu Yindi to the contemporary rock of the Yabu Band, and songs addressing contemporary Aboriginal themes such as the Stolen Generations from artists like Gina Williams. The station's intended market is the local Indigenous community and those interested in Indigenous culture and affairs — a dual audience that makes the station both a community service and a bridge to the non-Indigenous population. The station broadcasts on 100.9 FM across Noongar Boodjar (Noongar country) and on digital radio, with the slogan "Stay Deadly you mob" capturing its confident, community-owned identity. It is affiliated with First Nations Media Australia and the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia.

History

What would become Noongar Radio started as a segment on 6NR — the community station at the Western Australian Institute of Technology, now Curtin University — in 1979, one of the earliest regular Aboriginal radio presences in Western Australia. The Western Australian Aboriginal Media Association (WAAMA), founded in 1988 as an Aboriginal corporation to promote Aboriginal culture, was granted a community broadcasting licence in 1992, launching Noongar Radio as a full station. WAAMA's station — which also provided programming to the ABC and 6NR — became an important voice, with early announcers including Mark Bin Bakar (better known as his alter ego Mary G) and, in the late 1990s, Narelda Jacobs, now a Network Ten news anchor. But the licence was revoked in 2006 following complaints to the broadcasting regulator, silencing the service.

The rebirth came quickly. In January 2008 the Australian Communications and Media Authority allocated the 100.9 MHz licence to Peedac Pty Ltd, with the new callsign 6NME referring to Noongar Media Enterprises, then a Peedac subsidiary. The station was relaunched on 100.9 FM in 2008, and its first full NAIDOC Week broadcast went to air on 5 July 2009 — the date the station treats as its birthday, celebrated with the tenth-anniversary #NR10 Kaya Wandjoo Festival in July 2019. That anniversary captured what the station had become: over NAIDOC Week it broadcast 35 hours live from schools, hospitals, Wandoo Rehabilitation Prison — one of the country's most innovative prisons — and the NAIDOC Week opening ceremonies in both Perth and Fremantle, headlined by the Phil Bartlett Band and featuring the Madjitil Moorna Choir, 'the black Elvis' Reno James, the Yabu Band's Delly Stokes, the award-winning Natasha Eldridge, Jake and the Cowboys, the internationally acclaimed Phil Walley-Stack, poet Cyndy Moody and Fred Penny closing with the listeners' old favourite "Too Solid." The station's first voice, Jeremy Garlett, returned to kick off the celebrations. In 2018 the station was acknowledged as runner-up in the NAIDOC Perth Business of the Year category — recognition of its standing in the community it serves.

Programming

The Noongar Radio schedule blends music, talk and community service with a distinctly Indigenous character. Music programming spans traditional Noongar language songs, contemporary Aboriginal artists across genres — rock, country, hip-hop — and the anthems of the Aboriginal music movement. Talk programming addresses Indigenous affairs, culture, health, education and community news, with the station committed to positive, informed and empowering content that supports the achievements and aspirations of the Noongar community. The station's studios at 207 Beaufort Street in Perth are highly visible — a deliberate statement of presence in the city. Specialist broadcasts mark the cultural calendar: the Australia Day/Survival Day long-weekend broadcast ran 11 hours live across three days of culture and celebration in January 2018, and in April 2018 the station teamed with Footy Radio to carry Saturday WAFL games live on 100.9 FM — a natural fit for a community synonymous with some of the biggest names in Australian football, from Winmar and Farmer to Rioli. The station is supported in its work by the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Peedac and the City of Vincent.

Coverage and Audience

Noongar Radio broadcasts on 100.9 FM across the Perth metropolitan region — Whadjuk Boodja, the country of the Whadjuk Noongar people of the Perth area — and on digital radio, serving the local Indigenous community, First Nations people living in Perth, and non-Indigenous listeners interested in Aboriginal culture. Its audience is the Noongar community first: the families, elders, young people and organisations for whom the station is a daily source of culture, news and connection. But the station explicitly welcomes the wider community — its "Sounds Solid" branding and its celebration of Noongar culture, history, art, food and music at events like the Kaya Wandjoo Festival position it as a bridge, inviting non-Indigenous Perth to listen, learn and participate. For a city built on Noongar land, the station's presence on the dial is itself a statement: the First Nations voice, broadcasting daily.

Ownership

Noongar Radio is owned by Kuditj Pty Ltd, a not-for-profit Aboriginal organisation, and operates as a subsidiary of Kuditj — the successor to the Peedac structure under which the 2008 licence was granted. The station operates under a community broadcasting licence from the Australian Communications and Media Authority. The Aboriginal community ownership is fundamental: the station exists to give Indigenous people control of their own media voice, a principle at the heart of the Indigenous broadcasting sector nationally. Funding comes from government support — including the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet — sponsorships, and community fundraising. The station is a member of First Nations Media Australia, the peak body for the Indigenous broadcasting and media sector, and of the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia.

Digital Presence

Noongar Radio streams live through its website at noongarradio.com and through radio apps, carrying the 100.9 schedule — and the station's cultural mission — beyond the FM footprint to Noongar people wherever they live and to the globally curious. The station maintains an active social media presence promoting programs, artists, community events and its festival broadcasts. For a station whose purpose is strengthening Indigenous culture and expression, the digital platforms extend the oldest function of Aboriginal media: keeping the community connected across distance, sharing language, music and stories, and asserting a First Nations presence in a media landscape that has too often excluded it. From a segment on a university station in 1979 to Perth's only Aboriginal radio station today, Noongar Radio's history is the story of a community insisting on its right to be heard — and building the station to make it so.