Commercial radio stations in Australia are required under the Commercial Radio Code of Practice - Australian Music - to play a percentage of music between 6am and 12 midnight seven days a week that is performed by Australian artists. In 2017, public comments were made after the BIGSOUND Conference in September that the music industry had concerns that some commercial radio stations were not consistently meeting their Australian music quotas. These comments followed discussions in a closed session at the Conference.
APRA AMCOS and ARIA considered the issue, and the matter was raised directly with Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) in December 2017. More recently APRA AMCOS, ARIA and CRA met and agreed to work collaboratively to determine whether non-compliance is a real problem and, if so, the extent of the problem and how it could best be addressed.
The three organisations will now work together to obtain and review relevant data. While any stations that are not compliant will be contacted and requested to address the issue, it should be noted that CRA expects that the majority of Australian commercial radio stations will be found to meet their quotas and as in the past in some cases exceed them. This process is a voluntary joint process and does not form part of Code compliance requirements.
In general, in relation to any part of the Code (including the obligations relating to Australian music), if a listener has a complaint in relation to compliance the process is that they write directly to the station concerned. The station must then reply in writing within 30 business days. If the listener is not satisfied with the response, they may then escalate the complaint to the Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA), the regulator responsible for oversight of media and communications codes of practice. The Code can be found at commercialradio.com.au.
For the full statement, see http://apraamcos.com.au/news/2018/march/industry-works-together-on-australian-music/
