What if it was illegal for Irish radio stations to play UK/American artists?

its_steve116

Would we have more Irish music on the radio?

Ash.J.Williams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058324427/what-if-it-was-illegal-for-irish-radio-stations-to-play-uk-american-artists

not sure if Armenian psych folk music has caught on here yet

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058324427/what-if-it-was-illegal-for-irish-radio-stations-to-play-uk-american-artists

Yes. 😀

Hamsterchops

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058324427/what-if-it-was-illegal-for-irish-radio-stations-to-play-uk-american-artists

Like what would be the point to deprive Irish people from hearing great music from outside our tiny little bubble?

zell12

RnaG were forbidden to play english language tunes. Certain shows played non-trad music, cue ridiculous amount of Céline Dion en francais, Eros Ramazotti en italiano, Juanes en espanol, german house music.. It was great, no adverts, and a very different option to others on the FM dial

radiotrickster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121417792#Comment_121417792

No ads because there weren’t enough listeners to entice advertisers?

GSF

You’d have lots of crap Irish cover versions of U.K. and USA artists songs

NIMAN

Very few would listen to the radio any more.

its_steve116

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121420943#Comment_121420943

Very few?

Conqueror

First, define a "UK/American" artist. Johnny Rotten was born in Britain, but has an Irish passport. What about groups: if one member is Irish (One Direction; Girls Aloud), do they count as allowed, or do you need a minimum 50%?

It isn't necessarily the case that stations would replace British and American acts with Irish ones. There's plenty of non-Anglo-American acts with English-language songs over the last 30 years that have done well on radio and in the charts. If a ban is coming from a desire to break UK/US dominance, why not extend it to the Bahamas because of Rihanna, or South Korea because of K-Pop? Even without the slippery slope, making it illegal to play British or American acts is a dangerous game. You run the risk of reciprocity, closing Irish acts access routes to British or American stations.

Radio stations here would absolutely take a hit. This isn't the 1950s, with your choice being Radio Éireann vs BBC Light or Home or Third vs Radio Luxembourg (at night) vs whatever records you already have. You can listen to every genre and virtually any radio station in the world in seconds. A ban on acts people want to listen to mean listeners who want them will search elsewhere, and probably won't come back.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121417784#Comment_121417784

Save our souls from the sex and all that.

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058324427/what-if-it-was-illegal-for-irish-radio-stations-to-play-uk-american-artists

In the long run, no. Because radio stations would close down due to lack of audience and advertisers. In fact they'd end up with less air time.

Tork

There's a reason why Today FM's Irish-only show is broadcast at 8am on a Sunday morning.

elperello

What a ridiculous scenario to put forward.

Damien360

French radio has a 90's law imposed on it whereby 40% of all songs played must be French language. I don't know their music scene to see if it helped anything but there is at least precedence in Europe for this. I couldn't imagine 40% Irish language but 40% Irish bands might be doable.

TodayFm is particularly guilty of playing the exact same content over and over so it would be a nice change if it was mixed up a bit with local.

The danger is we get 4 in 10 songs are just U2.

zell12

Canada radio have 35%-40% Canadian music content requirement, between 0600-1800. It was brought in to safeguard the home market music scene. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_content

Similar in Portugal, requirement of 30% Portuguese music

I.am.Putins.raging.bile.duct

pretty much how North Korea operates

Rubberchikken

God I couldn't imagine it. Don't listen to the radio anymore, all Spotify here but what would listeners have to listen to..U2 the script Christy Moore etc plus all the dead artists.

Would it include Daniel O Donnell and his ilk? If so I'd predict the death of radio.

TheBMG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121422251#Comment_121422251

We already have Irish music quotas but the Hot Press brigade don’t like it because the radio stations aren’t playing the ‘right’ type of Irish music for them.

Why not let the radio stations play what they want? Presumably they know what their punters like more than a journalist does.

squonk

To be fair the Hot Press brigade aren’t entirely wrong. When there was a quota introduced at one stage, and I don’t know if it still applies, most of the Irish music played was by very established artists like U2, Enya, Van, Westlife, Thin Lizzy etc. while that fulfil the quota I think it goes against the spirit of it. I always figured it was there to. Allow some upcoming bands to get a few airplays

Montage of Feck

Ive yet to hear Fontaine's DC played during prime time radio.

TheBMG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121422744#Comment_121422744

What’s wrong with giving the punters what they want though? Personally I’d like to see a Phantom/8radio type station exist fulltime to give airplay to newer acts but I think it’s unfair and counter productive to make Sunshine 106.8 start playing demos from unsigned bands

3DataModem

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058324427/what-if-it-was-illegal-for-irish-radio-stations-to-play-uk-american-artists

I'd like to see a definition of "Irish" first.

Recorded in Ireland?

Written by an Irish born person?

Performed by an Irish born person?

Performed by an Irish resident?

Written by an Irish resident?

bassy

There be more shite songs

PopePalpatine

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121422251#Comment_121422251

The other 6 would be from the Ed Sheeran clones.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121422636#Comment_121422636

And that rule in Portugal just means the pop stations play Shawn Mendez and Nelly Furtado to death

Ger Roe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121426910#Comment_121426910

The BCI/BAI definition of Irish music used to contain all of the above criteria and stations could argue on the weighted merit of each one.

I seem to remember one of the big stations in Dublin arguing successfully for a Kylie Minogue track to be classed as an Irish play because it was recorded and produced in Ireland, using Irish facilities, by Irish sound engineers and producers.

The definition used to be a lot broader than most people would think, so designed to allow for a more diverse offering, but in the end, most stations stuck to the sure fire popular winners and the intention of encouraging new Irish artists was largely ignored, apart from ghettoized programmes outside of peak hours, or featured at the bank holiday or Christmas automated programmes, funded through the sound and vision scheme.

It was annoying to us at Phantom when other stations cherry picked the best of our Irish alternative artists and played them when they began to pop up on their monitoring radar. They would often get more industry credit for simply playing our most popular Irish tracks, than we did for encouraging and breaking them in the first place.

Some of the critically acclaimed Irish bands of today were early struggling plays on Phantom ... I wonder where they would get their initial exposure now?.... probably more online than through radio.

3DataModem

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121427640#Comment_121427640

Good info, ty.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058324427/what-if-it-was-illegal-for-irish-radio-stations-to-play-uk-american-artists

I think people would listen to UK or American music on their smartphones to other stations and streams from EU-Europe. France, Spain, also the Dutch stations are quite good.

And if one wants Irish news, they can still read it online.

I think Irish radio is slowly passing away dying a slow death. It's certainly not as popular ad as lively and unique as it was 20 years ago, plus due to the absence of DAB+ there is no real room for growth.

Smartphones offer a good choice these days for everybody's taste.