Debated in Parliament on 15 Nov 2012.
Ms Janice Koh asked the Minister for Communications and Information (a) what is the percentage of radio airtime currently being given to local music compared to all other music; (b) what is the breakdown of this percentage across the various languages; and (c) whether he can provide an update on his Ministry's review of local music broadcast quotas to help develop an audience base for homegrown music.
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We recognise the benefits of growing the Singapore music industry and creating opportunities for our music talents. Following the Member’s suggestion earlier this year for a local music quota for radio airplay, the Media Development Authority (MDA) consulted the music industry.
These consultations were important to ensure that there is a right balance between promoting local music via radio airplay and ensuring that radio stations have adequate broadcast quality content. The feedback from the industry has been that it lacks a sufficiently strong library of broadcast quality local music at this time. As such, the industry has advised against imposing such a quota at this stage.
Nonetheless, radio stations have not ignored the need to provide local music with adequate exposure via radio airplay. For example, MediaCorp Radio, our largest radio broadcaster, dedicates at least 10% of airtime, on the whole, to local music. The amount of airplay depends on the database of local works at its respective stations, which ranges from 5% to 30%, depending on language. Local Chinese and Malay radio stations play between one to two local works per hour. This translates to a range of two to four dozen local works in a day of broadcast. Local English stations typically play at least one local song per hour. The Tamil station, Oli, has the smallest base of music available and plays between four and five local Tamil songs daily.
The amount of airplay for local music can also depend on the focus and strategies of different radio stations and broadcasters. SPH UnionWorks’ playlists are derived based on proprietary audience research and on-air voting mechanism. For its Chinese radio station UFM100.3, songs by local artistes make up 15% to 20% of its pool of songs in the music playlist. HotFM 91.3 has less airplay time for local artistes’ songs due to its focus on top commercial hits. Nonetheless, the station airs a number of local acts, including Electrico, Singapore Idol winner Sezari Sezaili, Quick Quick Danger, and Ming Bridges.
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In the case of SAFRA, which runs 88.3Jia, local music makes up about 20% of its playlist. SAFRA’s other station, Power 98FM has been a strong advocate for local bands and has organised competitions and weekend programmes in support of these bands.
What is pressing in the short to medium term is to develop a supporting ecosystem that extends beyond radio airplay and will help build a strong repertoire of quality local music as well as strengthen awareness of local music. MDA and the industry are therefore working on several fronts.
The first is to leverage on live platforms and bring live performances by local artistes to Institutes of Higher Learning. This will help introduce our youths to our local artistes. Broadcasters can support these efforts as such performances can bring about branding and promotion of radio station activities. It will also further build up the familiarity of broadcasters with local artistes. We hope that this will inspire, identify and develop a pipeline of future Singapore artistes.
Local broadcasters are also doing their part to increase the repertoire of local works for broadcast. For a start, MediaCorp Radio and the industry are collating good local works for broadcast based on current selection requirements for airplay. The industry is also considering organising listening sessions involving music directors and members of public to select suitable songs by local artistes for radio broadcast.
To supplement these efforts, we are also working with the industry to expand the access to local music beyond radio airplay. We are currently focusing on promoting access to local music through digital platforms such as YouTube, Soundcloud, BandCamp, Facebook, or via mobile apps, such as MeRadio and AMPed.
MDA also has in place various schemes and initiatives designed to support the development and production of new music work talent. For example, local music singles funded through MDA’s Development Assistance Scheme and Extended Plays (EPs) Albums can tap on the Production Assistance Scheme. Such efforts will further help expand the library of recorded repertoire for broadcast.
One particular initiative that MDA and MediaCorp have worked on is the first joint call-for-proposal to create theme songs for seven MediaCorp TV programmes. This was launched on 25 September 2012. Selected songs are to receive airplay on MediaCorp’s free-to-air TV channels as well as on MediaCorp’s catch-up TV, xinmsn. In addition, each of these songs will be broadcast on selected MediaCorp’s radio stations at least two weeks prior to the first telecast of its show, during the show and minimally a month upon the end of the show.
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Building a sustainable movement towards producing good quality music is not easy. It requires the hard work and perseverance of our local music talents. MDA will do its part to continue to work with local industry players to build a stronger presence and appreciation of local music.
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