[78-L] RadioRe: This Will Make Radio Even MORE Dead

[Kristjan Saag]

Michael Biel wrote:

> Another thing to remember about UK radio is that one of the main reasons
> the pirate and continental radio stations were formed was not only to
> satiate the British teens' hunger for rock music, but because the needle
> time on the Beeb and even emerging ILR stations were controlled by the
> huge influence of EMI, Decca, and Pye, which did not allow much air time
> for independent labels.
--
Your timeline is a bit confused here, I'm afraid.
The independent local radio stations in Britain didn't start until the 
1970's, when the pirates were already dead and gone (except for Radio 
Caroline they all closed down in august 1967).
True, the BBC's willingness to satiate the increasing hunger for rock music 
was as bad as for most public service stations in Europe in the early 
1960's. But the influence of the large record companies on BBC was, I'd say, 
proportional to their output. As was the influence of the emerging small 
ones. There were no principal obstacles for any record company to have their 
music played on the BBC.
The real problem was Radio Luxemburg, the landbased station which broadcast 
to all of Europe in different languages, and whose English speaking pop 
broadcasts on 208 meters (1440 kHz) were targeted at the UK but heard and 
enjoyed all over Europe. It was this commercial "alternative", Radio 
Luxemburg, who failed to pick up the sounds of the new labels, because their 
airtime was paid for by...you guessed it: EMI, Decca and Pye. And the 
station's profile, as such, was, well into the mid 1960's, a mixture of new 
music and easy listening stuff, combined with Bingo, Christian teachings and 
other odd advertising, which didn't suit the younger audiences at all. The 
pirates were, with few exceptions, all focused on the latest releases of pop 
music and offered far more opportunities for the dj's to plug tunes of their 
personal liking. That was a huge difference to the heavily structured 
formats of the BBC and Radio Luxemburg.

---
> The performers should have made sure they had long term royalty agreements 
> with their
> record company with clauses that required the companies to keep their
> records in the catalog.  That would have been their pension.  Right now
> most performers' contracts have long since expired, and even if they
> haven't the record companies could delete their records and POOF! there
> would go their royalties on sales.
---
Yeah, in an ideal world this would be so. But precisely because of the fact 
that record companies can't keep an endless back catalogue in order to 
satisfy the needs of a minority of customers, the musicians' organizations 
in Europe were able to reach agreements with public broadcasters, be it on 
the air or in a candy store, to pay for the recordings they use (even older 
ones) in order to entertain their customers or audiences. That's the pension 
agreement. And a much better one than a youngster at 20 would get dealing 
with a record company...

Kristjan