RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

Australia) , it isn't a vehicle fог direct community participation. Nor, again with certain exceptions, do its newscasts and other informational programming highlight the concerns , problems , aspirations , etc . of those groups within the larger community which traditipnally have received little media coverage : immigrants , homosexuals , feminists , blue collar worKers , etc . Those with Norton Long's "games" to play in the community, chiefly the elite, find it puite easy to attract media attention to their activities , and often don't even have to seek that attention : they receive it because the media , radio among them , are accustomed to seeing them as the moving forces of the community . Local radio also rarely serves as an outlet for the cultural manifestations of the community . Inasmuch as music is a mainstay for radio around the world, it may seem surprising that local stations do so little to encourage local bands , vocalists , solo instrumentalists , etc. , but my observations over a ten уеаг period of listening to and visiting local stations indicate that most of those stations spend most of their time broadcasting the same sorts of music as do the national stations : the big pop hits of the day . Yet a few of the Australian public stations (3CR with feminist groups anđ soloisis, BKIN with Aboriginal groups and soloists) have manageđ not only to broadcast local music , but also to sell tape recordings of it . Certainly most local stations perform a service to their communities , although some , and especially many of those in France and in Belgium, attempt to operate l on the сћеар' and to broađcast little or nothing but national news and national popular music . That may be a service to some listeners, but there's little that is local about it . Most regulatory bodies set very loose standards of performance, Even when those standards are more specific , they may not do much to increase local broadcasting. For example , the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommumcations Commission (CRTC) and the Australian Broadcastmg Tribunal (ABT) both have musical content ruies specifying minimal amounts of broadcast time for Canadian and for Australian music . Generaliy speaking , this leads to one of two things , and possibly both; the music enđs up sounding virtually iđentical to what's available from the U.S. , Great Britain , etc . , and/or it may mirror aspects of a national culture , but not a local one . Economics is an important factor here : the recordmg inđustry in апу country usually hopes to get its products placed in the mternational market , especially if the country is as small in population as are Canada and Australia . Yet it would be possible to reguire very small amounts of local music , anđ that might lead in turn to some discoveries of significant local talent .

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