ABC Radio Australia’s Marshall Islands launch completes historic Pacific expansion
The expansion project was funded by the Australian Federal Government’s Indo Pacific Broadcasting Strategy and began in 2023, when ABC Radio Australia established an FM service in Gizo, Solomon Islands. Since then, the ABC has partnered with broadcasters and transmission providers across the region, to develop and launch services in Federated States of Micronesia (Pohnpei), Palau (Koror), Nauru, Kiribati (Tarawa), Tuvalu (Funafuti), Cook Islands (Rarotonga), Auki in the Solomon Islands and three additional Papua New Guinea locations, in East New Britain (Kokopo), Manus Island (Lorengau) and the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (Buka).
Alongside its investment in broadcast and delivery infrastructure, ABC Radio Australia has also tripled its Pacific content offering, launching new news, music, sport and cultural programming to better entertain and inform its growing audiences.
ABC Radio Australia celebrated the milestone by co-hosting an event with the Australian Ambassador to the Marshall Islands, Paul Wilson, at his residence in Majuro. The event was attended by representatives of the Marshall Islands Government.
ABC International Head Claire M. Gorman said: “The completion of the ABC Radio Australia FM transmission expansion project has been a landmark success – allowing the network to significantly grow its reach and listenership across the Pacific. In the 85 years since ABC Radio Australia first broadcast across the region, the network has undergone significant changes with this latest expansion in transmission sites. This represents the next chapter for ABC Radio Australia, providing new audiences with our slate of trusted news and Pacific-focused radio programming.”
ABC Radio Australia Manager Justine Kelly said: “Across the past two years, our ABC Radio Australia teams have been working incredibly hard to deliver this remarkable project. We are proud to be available across even more locations throughout the Pacific as our talented team of presenters and comprehensive suite of shows, share the incredible stories and voices from across the region. We deliver the latest in breaking news, sports coverage, new music and conversations about culture, the environment, health, faith and science.”
WAYS TO LISTEN: Audiences in Majuro can now tune into ABC Radio Australia on 106.7FM. There are multiple ways to listen to ABC Radio Australia across the Pacific – live via internet streaming, through 24-hour FM stations in your area, or by catching up with full episodes on ABC Pacific online.
For all media enquiries, contact: Annalise Ramponi, Marketing and Communications Coordinator, ABC International Ramponi.annalise@abc.net.au
We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn and work.
About ABC International Services For 85 years, the ABC has been broadcasting internationally. ABC Australia television has a monthly viewership across the Asia-Pacific of at least 10.5 million* and is available internationally via more than 100 rebroadcast partners. ABC Radio Australia’s FM radio service has a monthly urban listenership of at least 355,500** in the Pacific and Timor-Leste. ABC Pacific, the digital home for bespoke and curated content for Pacific audiences, has approximately 487,500*** followers on ABC Pacific Facebook.
ABC Asia, the digital home for bespoke and curated content for audiences across Asia, has over 5.7 million***followers on ABC Asia Facebook.
*Viewership in Asia measured by Ipsos Affluent Asia data, estimations and extrapolations (May 24), in the Pacific viewership measured by Tebbutt data, estimations and extrapolations (Nov 23). Total audience number is approximate and has not been de-duped. **Based on ABC-commissioned Tebbutt ‘Media Usage in the Pacific Survey’ (Nov 2023) noting listenership figure is estimated based on urban populations of six Pacific countries with the Timor-Leste audience figure extrapolated.
**Figures taken from Khoros Analytics (Sept 24).