Commercial Radio Codes of Practice

Submission to the review by Commercial Radio Australia

Written by Dr Richard Letts, with input from Music Council Members Robyn Holmes, Julian Knowles, Stephen Peach and Michael Smellie
February 27, 2009

Since 1992, the formerly government-managed regulation of the Australian music quotas on commercial radio has passed into the management of Commercial Radio Australia (CRA), the industry association for commercial radio broadcasters. While the regulations are ostensibly formulated by CRA, in consultation with representatives of national music industry organisations, they must be approved by the Commonwealth's Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA). Every few years, CRA is obliged to organise a review of the regulations, Commercial Radio Codes of Practice, including an invitation for comment from the public. Its recommendations must then be submitted to ACMA for approval, or not.

The Music Council responded to this invitation with a submission concerning Code of Practice 4. This is the Code that specifies the amount of Australian music that must be broadcast. It is a somewhat complex code, with a maximum requirement of 25% of music broadcast time or number of tracks for certain genres/formats, reducing in tiered decrements through 20%, 15%, 10% 5% for other formats. Jazz comes in at 5%, a theoretical concept since there is no commercial station with a jazz format. There are also quota requirements for "new music" -- tracks released in the previous 12 months. The quota applies in the period 6.00am to 12 midnight.The presentation by CRA was concerned mainly with its own proposals for change. The main acknowledged changes were a proposal to terminate the existence of AMPCOM, the industry monitoring body in which it shares membership with music industry stakeholders such as ARIA, APRA, and the Musicians' Union, and another to terminate the operation of Code 4 altogether if the present 1% cap on the royalty rates paid by the broadcasters to record companies and performers is removed.

In addition to these acknowledged changes, the CRA also, without acknowledgment, proposed to delete a large amount of text from the current Code. This has the effect of changing the stated purpose of the regulations, removing CRA's statement of support for Australian music, and deleting definitions such as the time of day requirement and those concerned with the new music regulations, making the latter almost impossible to implement.

The MCA submission gives its reasons for opposing every CRA proposal except one. It also expresses its deep dissatisfaction with the fact that these reviews are placed by the government in the hands of a stakeholder with a deep conflict of interest, and with the actual conduct of the current review by the CRA.

Read the submission