More Locally produced music on Irish radio

shayleon

Hi all
I created a new facebook page which will be followed by a petition.
Please join and give feedback.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/More-Locally-produced-music-on-Irish-radio/221784754505702?sk=info

There is an endless amount of musical talent in Ireland, yet what we hear on the radio is mostly mainstream American music and the occasional Irish classic. Nothing against Thin Lizzy or U2, but new acts deserve a chance too.

The aim of this page is legislation to increase the percentage of locally produced music. In France and Canada 40% of the music on the radio has to be LOCAL.

Such legislation will benefit the whole music industry and probably even tourism.
This will definitely benefit the radio LISTENER.

Such law should also include percentage of new material versus old, perhaps the 40% should be divided:
10% New releases (up to one year)
10% Established releases, 1-5 years old
20% any time.

selephonic

Another suggestion would be to try for some kind of quota for incidental and theme music. It always annoys me so much when see an RTE advert or homegrown show using music by UK or American acts in places where nobody would really notice the difference. Its just pure laziness on production companies and RTE's part.

"RTE, supporting the arts" - Not really!

shayleon

selephonic wrote: »

Another suggestion would be to try for some kind of quota for incidental and theme music. It always annoys me so much when see an RTE advert or homegrown show using music by UK or American acts in places where nobody would really notice the difference. Its just pure laziness on production companies and RTE's part.

"RTE, supporting the arts" - Not really!

Great idea selephonic. I will add this to the page.

Thanks.

HeartShake

Love this idea, but don't know how successful you'll be.

I listen to a Vancouver station The Peak all day and have found so many bands through it. Can't really say the same about Irish radio!

shayleon

HeartShake wrote: »

Love this idea, but don't know how successful you'll be.

I know chances are limited, but hopefully if we have a petition with a LOT of signatures, the broadcasting authority will give something. If we don't get enough signatures -it shows that the musicians themselves don't care much and in such a case I'll just keep the radio switched off.

Esy

It's a noble cause chief but it's simply not going to happen. Radio is a business. It has to generate money. It does that by selling advertising and it sells the advertising on the back of it's audience. The fact of the matter is that a) the type of people who would listen to new Irish music rarely, if ever, listen to the radio and b) station directors decide playlists based on single sales and people who buy singles are generally teenage girls. The station has to attract listeners and keep the existing ones happy in order to be able to sell ads and make money. Thus, it has to play music for vacuous teenagers. It will cease to exist if it doesn't.

If you set up a radio station devoted entirely to new Irish music, you'd probably be out of business in under a year.

shayleon

Good points Esy, but if the law will apply to ALL stations equally, I reckon most people who listen to the radio will continue to listen to it no matter what, out of habit. I am sure they will find marketing people to convince vacuous teenagers that Irish music is the new cool.

I think this cause is worthy of a petition... and if we fail, nothing has changed, nothing lost.

selephonic

Esy wrote: »

It's a noble cause chief but it's simply not going to happen. Radio is a business. It has to generate money. It does that by selling advertising and it sells the advertising on the back of it's audience. The fact of the matter is that a) the type of people who would listen to new Irish music rarely, if ever, listen to the radio and b) station directors decide playlists based on single sales and people who buy singles are generally teenage girls. The station has to attract listeners and keep the existing ones happy in order to be able to sell ads and make money. Thus, it has to play music for vacuous teenagers. It will cease to exist if it doesn't.

If you set up a radio station devoted entirely to new Irish music, you'd probably be out of business in under a year.

While I agree that a single station on its own wouldn't do too well playing only Irish music, if there was a level playing field, encouraging (forcing) Irish music to sit side by side with UK/USA chart stuff it would be accepted pretty quickly. Its worth remembering that not all new Irish music is anti-commercial, folksy, metal, or whatever. There's plenty of music being produced in Ireland that sounds exactly like the charting material.

The problem is that instead of supporting the local business, keeping the money in the country, stations are pushed by marketing, pr and laziness to play 'foreign music'.

Shay, another suggestion would be to contact IMRO about this, since this is really part of their job.

It would be interesting to develop some kind of listing showing how much Irish produced music each station is playing and organise some kind of Facebook group or boycott for the worst offenders. This is the type of thing that could encourage one station to publicise their use of homegrown music, and we could get a domino effect, although it may not last forever.

shayleon

Great advice Sele.
If you feel like joining the group and writing this there it would be cool. Otherwise I'll cut/paste this myself.
All the best.
Shay.

Fandango

shayleon wrote: »

Hi all
I created a new facebook page which will be followed by a petition.
Please join and give feedback.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/More-Locally-produced-music-on-Irish-radio/221784754505702?sk=info

There is an endless amount of musical talent in Ireland, yet what we hear on the radio is mostly mainstream American music and the occasional Irish classic. Nothing against Thin Lizzy or U2, but new acts deserve a chance too.

The aim of this page is legislation to increase the percentage of locally produced music. In France and Canada 40% of the music on the radio has to be LOCAL.

Such legislation will benefit the whole music industry and probably even tourism.
This will definitely benefit the radio LISTENER.

Such law should also include percentage of new material versus old, perhaps the 40% should be divided:
10% New releases (up to one year)
10% Established releases, 1-5 years old
20% any time.

Fully agree with this. Been playing and listening to music a long time now and the amount of new Irish acts being played is getting less and less as time goes by. Something that really annoys me. The biggest hit to the airplay in recent times is probably when Phantom got its radio licence as they started playing more mainstream music but they are still by far the front runners in this area. Most other stations play maybe 30 mins worth of new(ish) Irish music a week and thats it. The money being put into the arts is wasted completely if the music it produces doesnt see the light of day.

Fandango

selephonic wrote: »

It would be interesting to develop some kind of listing showing how much Irish produced music each station is playing

Good idea. I would imagine some of the bigger stations figures would be shocking!

Esy

Folks, how many of you download tunes for free or listen to music on Youtube instead of paying for it?

Fandango

Esy wrote: »

Folks, how many of you download tunes for free or listen to music on Youtube instead of paying for it?

What has that got to do with anything? Most new Irish acts would love people to download their music and listen to it on youtube as it increases their fanbase. Unfortunately for new acts, this doesnt happen because 99% of the country have never heard them as they get no airplay.

IrishCian

Radio Nova (pretty much the only station I ever listen to) have a fair bit if local music on it. They have some sort of show on Sundays(?) possibly, where they have an interview and play a few songs with an Irish "up-and-coming" band.

Fandango

IrishCian wrote: »

Radio Nova (pretty much the only station I ever listen to) have a fair bit if local music on it. They have some sort of show on Sundays(?) possibly, where they have an interview and play a few songs with an Irish "up-and-coming" band.

True but alot of stations do that. Basically have 1 show a week where they have new irish music and thats it. Dont get me wrong, Nova is pretty much the only station i listen to also and they do at least have that 1 show but they should have alot more as should the rest.

leggo

Yeah, I'd love for this to do well as there are plenty of great, unsigned Irish bands. But this is horrible timing so don't get your hopes up. The BAI are more concerned with just keeping stations in business these days and this is something counter-productive towards that end. If this was 10 years ago, you may have been in luck. But I wish you well all the same.

selephonic

leggo wrote: »

The BAI are more concerned with just keeping stations in business these days and this is something counter-productive towards that end.

The recession makes it more important than ever to keep money in the country, by encouraging local business, which music is. Buying 'foreign music' is exactly the same as shopping up north, except that there is no price difference for the customer.

Currently we are just sending money out of the country to foreign acts or paying it to established acts, some of whom refuse to even pay taxes here. I think its pretty clear that the media in this country don't see it is in their's and the national interest to promote a native music industry, so it is up to the powers that be to ensure that they do. This is possible but will likely require the backing of organisations such as IMRO and the Arts Council.