Turning off
By Jason Smith,
There’s more Kiwi music on the radio—but that’s only half the story
[Metrics]
‘Quota’ is a dirty word in post-deregulation New Zealand. But radio quotas are common in other places which, like us, live in the shadow of the massive US music industry. Canada and Australia have legislation that ensures compulsory national content quotas for commercial radio, at 35 percent and 20 percent respectively. (At present, Australia is reviewing its quota—if it rises, commercial radio may have to trawl back through the Kylie Minogue songbook. They should be so lucky). For our part, we have the New Zealand Music Code, an ‘agreement with targets’ established by the music industry, radio stations and NZ On Air.
The code has operated since 2000 with increasing targets, but our commercial radio stations have actually played more Kiwi music each year than they’re required to—which is great for the music industry and has provided lots of airtime for Kiwi musos, meaning more record sales and increased exposure in a virtuous circle. We’ve come along way since the early 1990s when New Zealand content on commercial radio sunk below a dismal two percent. Led by the likes of Bic Runga, who’s now an old bird in a flock of emerging talent like Nesian Mystik, Che Fu, Goldenhorse and Blindspott, the Kiwi music industry is surely on a roll. We’re hearing more of ourselves.
But here’s the killer question—what does the increased national content do to our listening habits? Sad to say, on a comparison with buddies Canada and Australia, our time spent listening to the radio is diving through the floor.
This can’t be blamed on new technology like Internet radio and iPods, because they’ve heard of those in Australia and Canada too. The changes in both the national content and the time spent listening are statistically significant enough to require some investigation. Here are some questions to consider:
- Canada and Australia have constant quotas of national content—and have much shallower declines in time spent listening than we do. Should we increase our national content on commercial radio and hope it will slow the rate of decline in time spent listening?
- Is there a natural ‘level’ of national content? Have we passed it or are we still short? Will we ever know?
- Are we getting bored by Kiwi music as there’s more of it on the radio every time we turn on? Maybe the Canadians are less bored by Celine Dion than we suspected?
Perhaps the rapid change in content has created a ‘culture shock’ and a corresponding reaction. Too much of a good thing too quickly, and now we have indigestion.
Certainly the period 2002–2004 showed the biggest ‘turn-off’ period—which lagged behind the period of largest increase in national content on radio. There’s a link here. And here’s the baseline fact you can’t dodge: at the same time as we hearing more of ourselves than ever before on the airwaves, we’re turning our radios off. Which is something worth considering next time you hit the dial.
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