[mplpost] Commercial radio play

[Richard Flohil]

Del Veseau posted (again):

>... a friend of mine ... was trying to get me excited about this new idea
>of his, namely a joint production venture of a 60 min show featuring the
>work of local indie artists. His thinking is based on this understanding he
>has, which I cannot at this point confirm, that private radio stations have
>a CRTC mandate to devote 1 hour of programming time per week to play local
>artists. He maintains that the stations cry about their wallets and so in
>effect, bypass this CRTC requirement without fear of recourse. He believes
>that if a 60 min segment were produced 'out of house' and simply handed to
>the station, that they would have no acceptable excuse to fall back on. If
>his premise regarding the CRTC mandate proves correct, then perhaps he has a
>valid idea in theory.


Gosh, I hate to pour cold water on this, but I'm afraid that there is 
no such mandate (there might have been, at one time, just as FM 
stations were instructed to have "foreground programming" but these 
requirements have long since been dumped).  If there was, stations 
would say that they are playing lots of domestic artists already as 
part of their 35 per cent CanCon requirements - and they'll insist 
Shania, Celine, and Nickeback are all "local").  No station would 
give an hour of programming to an outsider to produce, and they would 
certainluy not do so on their own because it would take time, and, as 
we know, time = money.  And radio stations don't want to spend any!
	I just wonder if ANYONE on this list listens to commercial 
radio, which becomes more vacuous and pointless and witless by the 
day.  We like to hope that radio folk are as passionate about music 
as we all are, but the sad fact is that music, for these programmers 
and their consultants and owners and shareholders, is just something 
to stop the commercials from banging into each other.
	ALL the stations that are succeeding are reaching for the 
15-28 demographic; the handful of stations we listen to (CBC 
excepted) and that Harry collects statistics for, hardly show up on 
the ratings at all.  Stations reaching an older, richer, and more 
discriminating audience are struggling to survive on a diet of ads 
for funeral parlours, life insurance, and cruise packages. 
Apparently, anyone over 28 doesn't buy anything else.
	The good news is that radio audiences are steadily dropping, 
and if this continues, the pendelum might swing back to more 
intelligent programming, a wider range of music, and fewer inane 
commercials.
	But I ain't holding my breath.

Richard

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