Tony Duggan, in reply to Justin Rollheiser:

>What are your opinions on radio stations selling-out to pop?  How
>often does this happen in other cities?  How can this be stopped from
>happening.
>
>Justin, I think the only thing that stops such a thing happening over
>here is the existence of the TV Licence supporting the BBC.

A similar system in Australia was axed about thirty years ago and
clearly it would be electorally unpopular to reintroduce it.  However,
the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is still funded from public funds,
although far less generously than hitherto.  Part of the organisation is
ABC Classic FM (renamed a few years ago but unlike its UK namesake,
non-commercial) and Triple J, a rock station.  One of the many people
who've tinkered with the ABC over the years floated the idea of combining
the two stations.  This provoked extensive debate in the letters pages of
the national newspaper, The Australian, in which such words as Philistine,
barbarian and vandalism appeared, and they were the milder ones.  The idea
was hastily shelved, and showed the bean counters that there was a much
larger level of support than they'd realised for quality broadcasting
beyond the arid wasteland of commercial radio.

Although sometimes I might be a little irritated by some of Classic FM's
programming, at least I do have access to a good 24-hour CM station.  Apart
from a couple of local area CM stations in Sydney and Melbourne, this is
essentially it as far as CM on the radio is concerned in Australia, and so
it's essential that we keep what we have.  My point is that, although it's
part of a much larger organisation, the station delivers CM to a population
of about 19 million people across most of the country, and at this time of
the year, that means doing so in five time zones.  The big difference is
that it's publicly funded, which emphasises Tony's point.  I can't see any
way for classical radio to survive otherwise.

Richard Pennycuick
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