BRC Now

The platform was formally known as Bundaberg Now and when introduced, also published content shared with us by community groups and organisations.

The decision was made to maintain 100% focus on keeping the community informed about Council decisions, projects, events and initiatives so we no longer accept community content on the platform.

With this slight change in direction, the platform was renamed to BRC Now.

We love to keep our community informed and we do that by providing news and information in a variety of formats to suit many different audiences.

Council is continually monitoring community engagement with its platforms to inform and update its Communications Strategy and ensure our time is invested in platforms with the highest levels of engagement from the community.

The platforms Council utilises adapts in response to the needs of the Bundaberg Region community and at the present time both the BRC Now Facebook page and website remain key parts of our communications toolkit.

While BRC Now is an avenue for Council to communicate directly with residents and ratepayers, Council values its relationship with local media outlets and continues to provide media with copies of media releases prior to publication on the platform, where possible.

Promoting Council information and providing this information direct to the community on an engaging platform has always been the key driver behind Council’s investment in this platform.

Readers will still find lots of high-quality content shared on this platform that is about and includes Bundaberg Region community members and community groups through their interactions with Council projects, events and initiatives.

Council is part of the local community and works closely with many groups, industries, organisations and individuals through a range of programs from grants and sponsorship to awards and advocacy.

The overall annual budget for Council’s Communications and Marketing team is $1.36 million. 

This is an all-inclusive budget which incorporates the expenses required to deliver the full range of support services to Council and the community including advertising, photography, videography, communications (internal and external), marketing, community engagement support and graphic design. 

While many of the team play a role in producing the stories and information shared on BRC Now, this is a small proportion of their overall roles and this content would still be produced and provided to the community if the BRC Now website did not exist.

The direct costs for BRC Now relate to website hosting and plug-ins which is a financial investment of about $15,500 per year.

Secure hosting is necessary to sustain the high level of visitor numbers to the sites.

Council’s Communications team produces content on behalf of many departments across the organisation to inform the community about projects, services, events and initiatives.

The content is prepared in a range of formats depending on the place - or “platform” – on which it is shared with the community, whether it’s media releases, social media posts, videos or advertising.

BRC Now is a central location to find all the media releases and much of the video content produced by Council’s communications team, as is other platforms like Facebook and YouTube.

Not providing BRC Now for our community would not reduce staff numbers due to the broad scope of the Communications team’s roles and the wider services provided to the organisation and the community.

It would also not significantly impact Council's budget as the only savings potentially realised would be the $15,500 investment in the website hosting and plug-ins.

However, with tens of thousands of website sessions each month where residents are receiving the latest from Council we think this is a pretty good investment.