RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

The greatest sophistication in terms of applied research goes into what music should get played . V/hereas until the late 70s, the Top 40 records were established by ringing up records bars , finding out what sells best and playing it , more recent methods are somewhat sophisticated ; 1. Up to 200 people are telephoned at random. The age-group, appropriate for the station, is established . 2 . A few bars of a new piece of music are played . 3. If the respondent can identif у the tune . he/she is asked whether he/she likes it or not. If they cannot identify the tune , another is played . 4 . Results are collated: positive feedback plus the own feeling about the music decide whether it will be played . This тау sounđ like a relatively primitive approach to a multimillion dolar business but in the absence of апу better product research methods , it will have to đo . THE FUTURE When radio broadcasting was introduced in Australia m 1923, the intention was that it be entirely operated by private business. The establishment of the ABC has created a duality which provided most listehers in Austraha with fair access to radio and different programs. Today, however , it seems that the country is verging more and more towards complete commercialisation of radio . New legislation is being drafted which will change the commercial media scene completely . So far , ownership was limited to one metropolitan radio in апу State , a makimum total of four radio licences within апу one. State , a maximum of four metropolitan radio licences owned regardless of State and a total limit of eight licences overall. To meet the developing market , the new ownership rules for commercial radio stipulate a national limit of no more than half the service areas in that State and a limit of one radio licence to a service area , and new and revised cross-media ownership limits . (The new rules prohibit the holdmg of prescribed interest by one person in both a television licence and a radio licence if more than ЗОХ of the population within the service area of one of those licences is also within the other service area . ) If Australia so far had 3 media empires each controllmg newspapers , television and radio , then in the future it will have media empires concentratmg more on one of those media . But guasi-monopolies will remain and since their programming is entirely dictated to by commercial interests it would seem that ultimately the pubhc interest will not be

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