FBI Radio

FBi Radio

FBi (call sign: 2FBI) is an independent, not-for-profit community radio station in Sydney, Australia. FBi places a heavy emphasis on local alternative music: it has a policy that at least 50 per cent of its music content is to be Australian, of which at least half comes from Sydney musicians.

FBi began 'test broadcasting' as an 'aspirant broadcaster' in 1995 following the then-Keating government's decision to allocate the last three FM licences in Sydney. The election of John Howard delayed the process as the coalition government focussed on radio licences for country towns. After making a series of short-term broadcasts over eight years, FBi Radio beat 16 other aspirant broadcasters to be granted a permanent licence by the Australian Broadcasting Authority in 2002.

Popular dance / hip hop aspirant station DEX FM were unsuccessful and FBi President Cassandra Wilkinson invited DEX founder George Crones to join the FBi board and merge the two stations.

A failed takeover attempt by one of the losing bidders for the permanent licence, Wild FM (a more commercially oriented dance music station) pushed FBi's full-time 24/7 broadcast to August 2003.

The station went to air with program director Meagan Loader and station manager Christina Alvarez in charge with Australia's youngest Music Director Dan Zilber calling the tunes.

In November 2006, FBi’s 'Sunset' program won the Best Radio Show award at the national Australian Dance Music Awards.

In September 2007, the Australian Labor Party chose FBi as the platform to announce its electoral commitment to resume funding for the Australian Music Radio Airplay Project.

In 2009, FBi asked listeners to ask Richard Branson to donate $1 million to the station, with the person getting his attention being promised $50k if he came through with the goods.... A young Australian woman swam to his house on Necker Island to inform him of the campaign and Branson called the station to chat on air to broadcaster Alison Petrowski. While Branson did not pay up the $1M he did donate prizes to the Save FBi campaign which raised nearly half a million dollars to save the station from the global financial crisis which had significantly impacted revenues and membership.

During mid-2011, FBi Radio officially launched its digital station.