Youth, radio and Australian popular music policy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/prbt.v14i2.100Keywords:
policy, popular music, radio, top 40, youthAbstract
Following its extensive Australian Music on Radio Inquiry conducted between 1982 and 1988, the Australian broadcasting regulator concluded that commercial radio had a responsibility to support the development of Australian music but its own systems for ensuring they fulfilled that responsibility were insufficient. While, as an objective of broadcasting policy the support for Australian music intersected with the federal government’s interest in aiding the development of the local music industry, the government’s concurrent interest in deregulating the broadcasting sector impeded the ability of regulator to address its regulatory deficiencies. In this article I explore how the objective to encourage radio to support the development of the Australian music industry generated a key rationale for the development of non-commercial youth radio services that translated into establishment of the ABC Triple J youth radio network in the 1990s and a set of independent youth community radio stations in the early 2000s.
References
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—1990b. Comprehensive Coverage: Music on Commercial Radio. Sydney: ABT.
—1992. Broadcasting in Australia—1991. Sydney: ABT.
Agardy, S., D. Heath, J. Burke, M. Berry and L. Toshner. 1985. Young Australians and Music. Melbourne: Australian Broadcasting Tribunal Research Branch.
Armstrong, Mark. 1986. ‘Deregulation of Radio’. Media Information Australia: 41: 45–49.
B&T. 1988. ‘Advertisement—The Promises to Support Australian Music!’ B&T Weekly. 15 July: 18. Sydney: Reed Business Information.
Breen, Marcus. 1999. Rock Dogs: Politics and the Australian Music Industry. Sydney: Pluto Press.
Brown, Alan. 1990. Deregulation of Australian Metropolitan Radio. Cultural Policy Studies: Occasional Paper No. 10. Brisbane: Institute for Cultural Policy Studies.
Collingwood, Paul. 1997. Commercial Radio since the Cross-Media Revolution. Sydney: Communications Law Centre.
Commonwealth of Australia. 1988. Hansard–Debate (Senator Powell). 19 December.
—1992. Broadcasting Services Act. Commonwealth of Australia.
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—1996. ‘Summer in the Suburbs: HITZ FM and the Reinvention of Teen Radio’. In The Media’s Australia, ed. H. Ericksen, 17–30. Melbourne: The Australia Centre, University of Melbourne.
Crawford, Robert. 2008. But Wait, There’s More! A History of Australian Advertising, 1900–2000. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
Cupitt, Margaret, Gillian Ramsay and Linda Sheldon. 1996. Music, New Music and All That: Teenage Radio in the 90s. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Authority.
Davis, Kylie. 1989. ‘Tuning in to Radio Bland’. Weekend Australian, Weekend. 13-14 May: 6.
De Bono, C. 1990. ‘Teenagers: Radio’s Lost Market?’ Ad News. 10 August: 16–17, 23. Surry Hills, NSW: Page Publications.
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Frith, Simon. 1981. Sound Effects: Youth, Leisure, and the Politics of Rock’n’Roll. New York: Pantheon Books.
Griffen-Foley, Bridget. 2009. Changing Stations: Australian Commercial Radio. Sydney: University of NSW Press.
Haldeman, Phil. 1993. John Laws Interview: ‘Once Upon a Wireless’, 23 August. Canberra: National Film and Sound Archive.
Johnston, C. 1994. ‘The Hitz Blitz’. Rolling Stone Australia (June): 40–42.
Jones, Colin. 1995. Something in the Air: A History of Radio in Australia. Kenthurst, NSW: Kangaroo Press.
Jonker, Ed. 1989. ‘Contemporary Music and Commercial Radio 1989’. Unpublished book. Held by author.
—1992. ‘Contemporary Music and Commercial Radio’. Media Information Australia 64: 24–30.
Land, Herman. 1957. ‘The Storz Bombshell’. Television Magazine. May: 1–8.
Lee, Michael. 1995. New Music, New Talent, New Technologies. Peter Rix Management, 27 April: section 5.
London, Juliet, and Jenny Hearder. 1997. Youth and Music in Australia, Part 1: A Review. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Authority, Australia Council, Australian Recording Industry Association.
Mac, Wayne. 2005. Dont Touch That Dial: Hits ’n’ Memories of Australian Radio. Canberra: WDJM.
MacFarland, David. 1975. ‘Up from Middle America: The Development of Top 40’. In American Broadcasting, ed. L. Lichty and M. Topping, 399–403. New York: Hastings House.
—1979. The Development of the Top 40 Radio Format. New York: Arno Press.
McClymont, Alison. 1989. ‘Rockers with Nowhere to Go’. Sun-Herald, 7 May: 34.
McCourt, Tom, and Eric Rothenbuhler. 2004. ‘Burnishing the Brand: Todd Storz and the Total Station Sound’. Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media 2/1: 3–14.
Ohara, Haruko. 1952. Comparative Preferences of Radio and Television Programs with Emphasis on Effects of Television on the Preferences of Radio Programs. Omaha, NE: University of Omaha.
PCA (Parliament, Commonwealth of Australia). 1942. Report and Evidence of the Joint Committee on Wireless Broadcasting. Canberra: AGPS.
Ramsay, Gillian. 1998. Headbanging or Dancing? Youth and Music in Australia: Part 2. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Authority, Australia Council, Australian Recording Industry Association.
Rasmussen, Chris. 2008. Lonely Sounds: Recorded Popular Music and American Society, 1949–1979. University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Rogers, Bob, and Denis O’Brien. 2008. Rock ’n’ Roll Australia: The Australian Pop Scene, 1954–1964. Sydney: Burbank Production Services.
Rosenbloom, Henry. 1976. Politics and the Media. Fitzroy, Vic.: Scribe Publications.
Sheldon, Linda, Gillian Ramsay and Stephen Nugent. 1995. Listening to the Listeners: Radio Research, a Report in Three Parts. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Authority.
Sheppard, Tony. 1988. ‘Radio Set to Fight Quotas in Courts’. B&T Weekly. 15 July: 8.
Shoebridge, Neil. 1989. ‘Shoebridge’. Business Review Weekly. 27 October: 95.
Tebbutt, John. 2006. ‘Imaginative Demographics: The Emergence of a Radio Talkback Audience in Australia’. Media, Culture and Society 28/6: 857–82.
Turner, Graeme. 1993. ‘Who Killed the Radio Star? The Death of Teenage Radio in Australia’. In Rock and Popular Music: Politics, Policies, Institutions, ed. T. Bennett, S. Frith, L. Grossberg, J. Shepherd and G. Turner, 142–55. London: Routledge.
—2001. ‘Reshaping Australian Institutions: Popular Culture, the Market and the Public Sphere’. In Culture in Australia: Policies, Publics and Programs, ed. T. Bennett and D. Carter, 161–75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Webb, Marcus. 1981. ‘Radio on: Music in the Air’. In The Australian Music Directory 1981–82, ed. M. Roberts and P. Beilby, 157–72. North Melbourne: Australian Music Directory.
Whitehead, Geoffrey. 1988. Inside the ABC. Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin.
—2001b. Report of the Australian Broadcasting Authority on the Allocation of Three Community Radio Broadcasting Licences to Serve the Melbourne-wide Licence Area and one Community Radio Broadcasting Licence to Serve the Melbourne City Licence Area. Sydney: ABA.
ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission). 1976. 2JJ: A Brief Qualitative Investigation / Audience Research. Sydney: ABC.
—1985. Australian Broadcasting Corporation Corporate Plan 1985–1988. Sydney: ABC.
ABCB (Australian Broadcasting Control Board). 1976. ABCB Annual Report. Canberra: ABCB.
ABT (Australian Broadcasting Tribunal). 1981. Annual Report 1980–81. Canberra: ABT.
—1982a. News Release NR313—Broadcasting Tribunal Seeks Comments on Proposed Amendment to Radio Program Standards. North Sydney: ABT.
—1982b. Notice of Proposed Amendment to the Broadcasting Program Standards. North Sydney: ABT.
—1983. Youth and the Music Industry: An International Perspective. Background Paper: Australia. Sydney: ABT.
—1986. Australian Music on Radio. Sydney: ABT.
—1987. Australian Music on Radio Conference 7-8 September 1987. Transcript of Proceedings. Sydney: ABT.
—1988a. Broadcasting In Australia—1988. Sydney: ABT.
—1988b. Decision and Reasons: Revised Standard for Australian Music on Radio. Sydney: ABT.
—1989. Australian Music on Radio Quarterly Report. Sydney: ABT.
—1990a. Australian Music on Radio Quarterly Report. Sydney: ABT.
—1990b. Comprehensive Coverage: Music on Commercial Radio. Sydney: ABT.
—1992. Broadcasting in Australia—1991. Sydney: ABT.
Agardy, S., D. Heath, J. Burke, M. Berry and L. Toshner. 1985. Young Australians and Music. Melbourne: Australian Broadcasting Tribunal Research Branch.
Armstrong, Mark. 1986. ‘Deregulation of Radio’. Media Information Australia: 41: 45–49.
B&T. 1988. ‘Advertisement—The Promises to Support Australian Music!’ B&T Weekly. 15 July: 18. Sydney: Reed Business Information.
Breen, Marcus. 1999. Rock Dogs: Politics and the Australian Music Industry. Sydney: Pluto Press.
Brown, Alan. 1990. Deregulation of Australian Metropolitan Radio. Cultural Policy Studies: Occasional Paper No. 10. Brisbane: Institute for Cultural Policy Studies.
Collingwood, Paul. 1997. Commercial Radio since the Cross-Media Revolution. Sydney: Communications Law Centre.
Commonwealth of Australia. 1988. Hansard–Debate (Senator Powell). 19 December.
—1992. Broadcasting Services Act. Commonwealth of Australia.
Communications Update. 1989. ‘Radio into the 1990s: Uncertain Future’. Communications Update: Newsletter of the Media and Communications Council 48: 2.
Counihan, Mick. 1992. ‘“Giving a chance to a youthful muse”: Radio, Records and the First Australian Music Quota’. Media International Australia 64: 6–16.
—1996. ‘Summer in the Suburbs: HITZ FM and the Reinvention of Teen Radio’. In The Media’s Australia, ed. H. Ericksen, 17–30. Melbourne: The Australia Centre, University of Melbourne.
Crawford, Robert. 2008. But Wait, There’s More! A History of Australian Advertising, 1900–2000. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
Cupitt, Margaret, Gillian Ramsay and Linda Sheldon. 1996. Music, New Music and All That: Teenage Radio in the 90s. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Authority.
Davis, Kylie. 1989. ‘Tuning in to Radio Bland’. Weekend Australian, Weekend. 13-14 May: 6.
De Bono, C. 1990. ‘Teenagers: Radio’s Lost Market?’ Ad News. 10 August: 16–17, 23. Surry Hills, NSW: Page Publications.
Department of Communications Forward Development Unit. 1986. Future Directions for Commercial Radio—Interim Report AM/FM Conversion. Canberra, Australian Government.
Dix, Alex. 1981. The ABC in Review: National Broadcasting in the 1980s—Vol. 2 Report. Canberra: Committee of Review of the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
Evans, Gareth. 1988a. Media Statement 83 (e) / 88—National Plan for the Development of Metropolitan Radio Services: Way Clear for Establishment of ABC Youth Network. Canberra: Minister for Transport and Communications.
—1988b. Media Statement—National Plan for the Development of Metropolitan Radio Services 83 (a) / 88. Canberra: Minister for Transport and Communications.
—1988c. Media Statement—National Plan for the Development of Metropolitan Radio Services: More FM Radio Services in Capital Cities. Canberra: Minister for Transport and Communications.
—1988d. Media Statement—National Plan for the Development of Metropolitan Radio Services: Way Clear for Special Interest Commercial Radio. Canberra: Minister for Transport and Communications.
FARB (Federation of Australian Radio Broadcasters). 1983. Submission from FARB to the Inquiry into Australian Music on Radio, Appendix B: Brief History of the Australian Performance Study Group. Sydney: FARB.
Fatherley, Richard. 1998. Radio’s Revolution and the World’s Happiest Broadcasters (Audio Documentary). http://www.reelradio.com/storz/index.html (accessed 4 January 2013).
Federal Court of Australia. 1988. Re Ballarat Broadcasters Pty Ltd; Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation Pty Ltd; Radio 2sm Pty Ltd; South Coast & Tablelands Broadcasting Pty Ltd; Wesco Communications Pty Ltd v Australian Broadcasting Tribunal; Australian Record Industry Association—Decision of Justice Davies, in FCo Australia (Ed.) [1988] FCA 320 (16 September 1988).
Foster, D. 1976. Broadcasting: The Last Chance, Speech to Rotary Club of Melbourne, Federation of Australian Radio Broadcasters, 17 March. M539, BC: 5413717 [Personal papers of Prime Minister E. G. Whitlam]. Folder entitled Green-Broadcasting [box 10]. Period: 1976–1976. Sydney: National Archives of Australia.
Frith, Simon. 1981. Sound Effects: Youth, Leisure, and the Politics of Rock’n’Roll. New York: Pantheon Books.
Griffen-Foley, Bridget. 2009. Changing Stations: Australian Commercial Radio. Sydney: University of NSW Press.
Haldeman, Phil. 1993. John Laws Interview: ‘Once Upon a Wireless’, 23 August. Canberra: National Film and Sound Archive.
Johnston, C. 1994. ‘The Hitz Blitz’. Rolling Stone Australia (June): 40–42.
Jones, Colin. 1995. Something in the Air: A History of Radio in Australia. Kenthurst, NSW: Kangaroo Press.
Jonker, Ed. 1989. ‘Contemporary Music and Commercial Radio 1989’. Unpublished book. Held by author.
—1992. ‘Contemporary Music and Commercial Radio’. Media Information Australia 64: 24–30.
Land, Herman. 1957. ‘The Storz Bombshell’. Television Magazine. May: 1–8.
Lee, Michael. 1995. New Music, New Talent, New Technologies. Peter Rix Management, 27 April: section 5.
London, Juliet, and Jenny Hearder. 1997. Youth and Music in Australia, Part 1: A Review. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Authority, Australia Council, Australian Recording Industry Association.
Mac, Wayne. 2005. Dont Touch That Dial: Hits ’n’ Memories of Australian Radio. Canberra: WDJM.
MacFarland, David. 1975. ‘Up from Middle America: The Development of Top 40’. In American Broadcasting, ed. L. Lichty and M. Topping, 399–403. New York: Hastings House.
—1979. The Development of the Top 40 Radio Format. New York: Arno Press.
McClymont, Alison. 1989. ‘Rockers with Nowhere to Go’. Sun-Herald, 7 May: 34.
McCourt, Tom, and Eric Rothenbuhler. 2004. ‘Burnishing the Brand: Todd Storz and the Total Station Sound’. Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media 2/1: 3–14.
Ohara, Haruko. 1952. Comparative Preferences of Radio and Television Programs with Emphasis on Effects of Television on the Preferences of Radio Programs. Omaha, NE: University of Omaha.
PCA (Parliament, Commonwealth of Australia). 1942. Report and Evidence of the Joint Committee on Wireless Broadcasting. Canberra: AGPS.
Ramsay, Gillian. 1998. Headbanging or Dancing? Youth and Music in Australia: Part 2. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Authority, Australia Council, Australian Recording Industry Association.
Rasmussen, Chris. 2008. Lonely Sounds: Recorded Popular Music and American Society, 1949–1979. University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Rogers, Bob, and Denis O’Brien. 2008. Rock ’n’ Roll Australia: The Australian Pop Scene, 1954–1964. Sydney: Burbank Production Services.
Rosenbloom, Henry. 1976. Politics and the Media. Fitzroy, Vic.: Scribe Publications.
Sheldon, Linda, Gillian Ramsay and Stephen Nugent. 1995. Listening to the Listeners: Radio Research, a Report in Three Parts. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Authority.
Sheppard, Tony. 1988. ‘Radio Set to Fight Quotas in Courts’. B&T Weekly. 15 July: 8.
Shoebridge, Neil. 1989. ‘Shoebridge’. Business Review Weekly. 27 October: 95.
Tebbutt, John. 2006. ‘Imaginative Demographics: The Emergence of a Radio Talkback Audience in Australia’. Media, Culture and Society 28/6: 857–82.
Turner, Graeme. 1993. ‘Who Killed the Radio Star? The Death of Teenage Radio in Australia’. In Rock and Popular Music: Politics, Policies, Institutions, ed. T. Bennett, S. Frith, L. Grossberg, J. Shepherd and G. Turner, 142–55. London: Routledge.
—2001. ‘Reshaping Australian Institutions: Popular Culture, the Market and the Public Sphere’. In Culture in Australia: Policies, Publics and Programs, ed. T. Bennett and D. Carter, 161–75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Webb, Marcus. 1981. ‘Radio on: Music in the Air’. In The Australian Music Directory 1981–82, ed. M. Roberts and P. Beilby, 157–72. North Melbourne: Australian Music Directory.
Whitehead, Geoffrey. 1988. Inside the ABC. Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin.
Published
2014-01-30
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Wilson, C. (2014). Youth, radio and Australian popular music policy. Perfect Beat, 14(2), 100-119. https://doi.org/10.1558/prbt.v14i2.100
