Australian radio could be facing a shake-up thanks to recommendations from a new music industry inquiry.
As reported by The Sydney Morning Herald, the inquiry calls for greater accountability from the communications watchdog when it comes to local commercial radio stations meeting their Australian content quotas, which call for "no less than 25 per cent of all music" played between 6am-12am to be from Australian artists, with a further 25 per cent of that to be tracks released in the past year.
"Commercial and community radio are required to assign a specified minimum percentage of music broadcast time to Australian music content, which in turn would support Australian culture," explained music industry publicist Chrissie Vincent in a study released on radio quotas last year. These quotas are self-regulated.
"It is regulated in a sense that the codes are registered with the Australian Communications and Media Authority [ACMA], and the code is there and is part of it," further explained ARIA CEO, Dan Rosen, at the time.
"It's self-reporting, so at the moment radio reports its compliance with the code, but it's overseen by the ACMA and if there is a dispute under the code, or there's a sense that stations may not be meeting their requirements under the code, the code operates in such a way that you can lodge a complaint firstly with the station and then ultimately the ACMA reserves the right to take action."
Commercial Radio Australia's chief executive Joan Warner has rejected the inquiry's recommendations in regard to changing the Commercial Radio Industry Code of Practice, saying "The recommendations relate to complex issues and we do not accept them as a way forward," and that they would result in tighter regulation of local radio while "internet and music streaming services remain, to all intents and purposes, regulation free".
Comments