Chugg blasts commercial radio

Michael Chugg spoke at the Australasian World Music Expo late last week and had a massive go at commercial radio…..

“Mainstream radio will not fucking play Australian music until they have to. It’s awful."

“I’m sure eventually it will change, but it’s very frustrating the short playlists and the domination international music has on commercial radio stations.”

“With mainstream radio, it would be good to see out of the 60 to 70 records they play, 25 per cent of that be current Australian content… instead of the greatest hits shit they play between midnight and 6am to fill the quota.”

“The Commerical Radio Association will tell you that I’m full of shit, but just stay up one night and have a listen. You’ll be surprised.”

Chugg said he recently spoke with Simon Crean, the Federal Minister for the Arts, about this issue…

“I told him it was all very well talking about how many Australian bands we’re breaking overseas, but did he realise that they had to go overseas to break it because we can’t get any airplay on our own radio stations?”

“He was a bit pissed off with me about that, but that’s the reality of it.”

“He said ‘You’ve got to talk to the Communications Minister because it’s not in my portfolio’, and I thought, ‘give me a break… you’re either united or you’re not’.”

Read more at Musicfeeds here.

See our earlier opinion piece at Radio Today on how to address the Australian Content issue most effectively here, which includes some more colourful quotes from Michael Chugg.