Comment from Peter Saxon. 

Every year or so music heavyweight Michael Chugg gives radio a spray for not playing enough Australian songs. He recently told the BIGSOUND Conference, “The quota’s far too low and they take advantage of late night… running tracks from midnight to dawn. They’ll deny it, but it’s true.”

And then to ensure that his tired old rant still made the headlines he added, “It’s bullshit, and it’s holding the industry back.”

Here’s a newsflash Mr Chugg: The Australian Radio Industry has no moral obligation to help your industry out at its expense. What it is obliged to do is to put its audience first and play the music they want to hear, not what you want them to hear.

And don’t just take my word for it. Here’s what SCA Head of Content Craig Bruce has to say: “Michael should stick to what he does well. Given that he has never worked in the radio industry I’m not sure how he’s in a position to comment on what we do.”

Radio is, however, obliged to deliver a quota of Australian music as ordained by AMPCOM, the appropriatley named Australian Music Performance Committee. See quota chart below. 

In case you haven’t heard, Mr Chugg, mainstream radio has its own problems battling a bevy of new players like Pandora and Spotify competing for the music lovers’ ear. iTunes will add its considerable weight to the sector on Wednesday. Good luck getting them to adjust “Genius” algorithms to put more Australian songs on the playlist.

The fact is Mr Chugg, we live in a global society where, by and large, we no longer protect our manufacturers with tariffs and quotas. True, it’s helped destroy much of our manufacturing industry but people would rather have more choice for less money. Oh yes, we all talk about buying Australian, but what we really mean is you should buy Australian while I buy whatever is cheapest or most suits my lifestyle, regardless of where it’s made.

Australian talent punches way above its weight and I have never met a music director yet that doesn’t look for reasons to add an Aussie song rather than reasons not to. But like any other manufacturer, the music industry has to live or die on its own merits and adapt to the brave new world we live in now and the one in which we’ll be living in in the future.

Peter Saxon