Letters

Rip It Up, Issue 101, 1 December 1985, Page 12

Letters

Post to 'RIU' Letters, PO Box 5689, Auckland 1

A Letter From IZM Dear Sir and Mark Everton: IZM is not trying to close down Student Radio, true, my "masters" have lodged an objection to BFM’s latest application, but the reasons behind this have been completely misunderstood. Neither IZM nor Radio New Zealand is opposed to Campus Radio, nor do we want to see it closed down.

We know that Campus Radio provides a programme which is not available from IZM or any other station and recognise that Campus Radio has become part of the cultural life of the university. We also acknowledge that not everybody likes OUR programme. So why did Radio New Zealand object? Really, it was on what could be called a technicality, and relates to the type of broadcasting warrant for which Campus Radio has applied. Ever since Campus Radio began, it has used what are known as 'Short Term Broadcast Authorisations' or STBAs. As their name implies, STBAs exist to facilitate the establishment of temporary radio stations. Radio New Zealand uses STBAs itself on occasions: a good example is the "summer” radio station at Mt Maunganui. STBAs are a "fast-track" way of getting such a station through the formalities and on the air. An STBA, therefore, was entirely appropriate when campus Radio began, operating as it did only at Orientation time.

Since then, Campus Radio’s activities have expanded and now the station is on the air for most of the year, every year. However, the station is still operating on STBAs a whole series of them each year. So, when Campus Radio applied for next year’s series of STBAs, and indicated that it intended expanding its operation still further, Radio New Zealand thought it was time to question the appropriateness of STBAs. Campus Radio is not a temporary station: it is (and should be) a permanent member of the Auckland radio community. Assuming next

year’s application is granted, Campus Radio will be on the air for more hours than the Concert Programme currently is. Surely it is time the station had a permanent warrant? Permanent warrants usually apply for five years, so Campus Radio would avoid the hassle of having to apply every year. Part of the process of obtaining and renewing a permanent warrant is a Tribunal Hearing at which any interested party may appear. Radio New Zealand, in its objection to the current application, has said that IZM has to go through the Hearing process (as do all other Auckland radio operators) and is saying that Campus Radio should too.

Tribunal Hearings allow a station's operation to be reviewed, to ensure that it is still doing what it said it would do when it started. Radio New Zealand has signalled that if Campus Radio has a permanent warrant, then at the hearing Radio New Zealand would appear to ensure that Campus Radio remains the low-budget, alternative, student radio station, with a minimum of advertising, that it is intended to be. Radio New Zealand would not be trying to close the station down, but just ensuring that Campus Radio remained loyal to its principles.

That, then, is the reason for Radio New Zealand's "objection" Not an objection to Campus Radio as such, but to the nature of its application. An acknowledgement of Campus radio’s "coming of age”, if you like, and a recommendation to the Broadcasting Commission that the station should now have permanent status, with all of the privileges and obligations that such status implies. I have no doubt that Campus Radio will be on air next year and I wish them well. Chris Bray Station Manager, IZM It's nice that RNZ apparently wishes to help Campus Radio towards permanent status but, frankly, seeking to significantly cut back the station's hours of broadcast AND its ability to keep itself running with advertising revenue seems a curious way to do it. Campus Radio would probably leap into a tribunal in search of a permanent warrant itself were it not for the fact that a full tribunal hearing would without doubt

bankrupt the station and put it off the air. That is obviously not practical, so if RNZ's objection is successful, we will have a Campus Radio broadcasting only on weekdays at term time and with limits placed on its relatively meagre ability to earn money for itself from whence will come the funds to enter a tribunal hearing? And let's not forget, after all the recent wind from politicians about local music on radio, that this is the Auckland radio station that plays 50 per cent local music being objected to by public broadcasting. RB

Lover’s Letter Thank you for your recent exposure, but the Axmin do not like being collectively called weirdos, realising the implications of this kind of generalisation. Acceptable are the following, all of which are directly related to one or more of the collective of indivdiual minds and bodies which makes up the“group'’: they are alcoholic, diabetic, schoolgirls, drug addict, student, artist, solo mother, allergenic (health nut), petty criminals, lovers of life, lovers of each other, exotic gardeners. I realise you have limited space, but print this Russell, even if you have to cut Andrew Fagan’s poem. Love: Steve McCabe

Sorry Steve, you’re right, people get the wrong idea about generalisations ... but I did mean, y'know, good weird ... RB Smiles Behind Closed Doors With Heads On In a recent Melody Maker, Robert Smith mentioned that when they go to NZ “we only smile behind closed doors." I’m not surprised if the review of the Cure's The Head On the Door is anything to go by. Mr Smith regards it as his best. Cured Kelburn

Filthy Punk Mockers? Did you filthy lurkers know that the Mockers arnt the only Wgtn punk rock band! There are and there was heaps more, what you guys dint ment in you arty on NZ music scheme. What? Me not Narcing on, was it that our Wgtn "Band its” were so far underground that yous can’t even dig it up? Miss Riot cl- Bedford Truck, Nowhere