Keynote speaker: Mr Stefan Romaniw

A bit about Mr Stefan Romaniw

Mr Romaniw is the current executive director of Community Languages Australia. He has also served as the chairperson of the Victorian Multicultural Commission (VCM) with years of teaching experience before becoming involved with the government but here is his biggest title. Mr Romaniw is responsible for over 20 million Urkainians outside Ukraine as the secretary of the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC).

Connect – Create – Crossroads

Mr Romaniw to cover a range of ideas. Two of these ideas being the public policy and administration of ethnic broadcasting as well as the role of languages in communities and schools.

Connect

The audience were asked to think about whether mainstream media is capable to do our job. Also, how do multicultural and community broadcasters differ? We were asked to wonder about who our audiences are when broadcasting. How do we connect with them? What do they want and how do we connect with the mainstream?

A reference was made to everyone in the room that is a part of the NEMBC. Mr Romaniw quizzed the us about what our roles are and what our niche is. He was able to relate these questions to a brief story he shared. At a forum  Mr Romaniw attended, former AFL CEO Andrew Demitriou was also there and was asked a difficult question. We was asked if he believed whether soccer would overtake AFL. His response was that ‘Competition is good’.

Create 

To create partnerships was said to be crucial in developing ethnic broadcasting organisations. Partnerships with groups like school council organisations, the Minister’s circle, principle associations and the Department of Education are what  Mr Romaniw was talking about.

Crossroads

The role and position of ethnic media was said to interlink and cross over. Funding models also, and the changing expectations of audiences in radio.

Mr Romaniw left our audience thinking more about their role in the media. Their position in multicultural broadcasting. And how they can help grow diversity in radio.