A campaign has been launched to pressure radio stations to increase their quota of Australian music to at least 35%.
The Change.org petition says:
Currently mainstream radio stations only have to play 25% Aussie music (only 6% new) between 6am & midnight and others can get away with even less.
This means they can technically play all of that quota totally outside prime listening times. Why don’t we strive to have the same rules as Canada? At least 35% Australian music between 6am and 6pm Mon-Fri.
With the live music industry (among others) being the first to suffer in lockdowns and restrictions why not boost that industry in a way that requires little effort? After all there is no shortage of talent here in all genres. Not only would it benefit artists, it would feed into so many other parts of the creative industry as well. Let’s get Australian radio to support its own artists more and feed money back into the local music scene!
Musician Bianca, who began the petition, posted on social media:
“This campaign his has been something that’s frustrated me for a while because of all the extremely talented artists I know in Australia that don’t get the support they deserve.
“I don’t have a very big profile here in Australia so I haven’t felt like my voice would be heard but after seeing the response from @jack_river posting about Aussie Music in the Olympics it’s clear that people WANT to support their local acts.
“Why stop at just the Olympics coverage and grocery store radio though? We can be doing so much more to support local music and feeding into the creative economy. Yes it may be a bit challenging to implement at the start but SO many people and businesses would benefit. Please share and tag your favourite Aussie artists so we can get the message out there and hopefully bring some positive change! #increasethequotaAU
The campaign, launched two days ago, is aimed at petitioning Communications & Arts MInister Paul Fletcher to increase quotas via a change to legislation.
The reference to Olympics and grocery store radio relates to a related campaign begun by publicist Karen Eck to encourage companies to put Aussie music on their hold systems and a similar campaign by musician Jack River that resulted in Coles Radio programming more Aussie music.
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I can't remember what the Broadcasting Services Act has to say about quotas but generally the legislation should define the process by which quotas are set in the Codes of Practice through a process of consultation with the community rather than prescribe the rules itself. Commercial radio stations are businesses operated for profit. It's a two way street, and a lot of independent music isn't particularly commercially attractive.