Minister for Communication, Eamonn Ryan came under fire for his policies on music file sharing and radioplay at last weekend’s Music Show seminar hosted by Hot Press magazine at the RDS Showgrounds. Also on the panel chaired by Stuart Clarke were Louis Walsh, Westlife and Jedward manager, Victor Finn, IMRO, Marc Marot, SEG International and musician Paul Brady.
Illegal filesharing
On illegal filesharing of music, Victor Finn of IMRO stated that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) bore the responsibility to stem the tide of music products being shared over the internet leading to the loss of thousands of jobs in the music industry stating, “You (the minister) have the power to regulate that industry, the ISPs are operating in Ireland by way of government licensing. You have the power to make them responsible for what is happening on their networks.” Paul Brady voiced concerns that future generations would be left with little musical output if the culture of free music prevailed. The effects of illegal file sharing were demonstrated by many artist’s stories of investing years into writing and all their money into a new album only to re-coup a fraction of the production costs on the albums initial release and then see thousands of bit torrents created within days making all their hard work available for free across the internet.
The minister argued strongly for a forum between the ISPs, software/product developers and those concerned on the panel to develop new innovative means of delivering music to listeners and said “There is huge employment potential from expanding our music industry and bigger opportunities lay out there. We speak English and sing in English and there’s huge talent”
Radio Play
Calls from Louis Walsh for greater playlisting of Irish music on daytime commercial radio stations dominated the latter half of the discussions. The minister was called to bring forward further legislation to force radio stations to play a higher percentage of Irish music during peak daytime hours and to close loopholes that allowed stations to fill their quotas by programming niche Irish music shows late at night and at weekends. As legislation stands at the moment any music produced in Ireland is eligible to be classed as “Irish” such as Kylie Minogue’s albums recorded at Windmill Lane studios in Dublin. Louis Walsh’s mantra was “No radioplay, no hits ….. radio is the oxygen of the business”.
High praise during the discussion was given to Limerick Live 95fm’s Green’n’Live show presented by PPI award nominee, Alan Jacques for it’s Irish produced playlist but it was stressed that being in a timeslot late on Friday nights (10pm) and with no podcast version available this quality radio show is not maximising it’s listenership potential.
