Whistling in the wind as simple as ABC

-----Original Message-----
From: Radio National Enquiries [mailto:info_rn@your.abc.net.au]
Sent: Monday, 29 October 2012 5:51 p.m.
To: 'tarps'
Subject: RE: Music

Dear Geoff Ellis,

Radio National does use standard responses for listener correspondence, similarly to other organizations in the media. There are several reasons for this; firstly, I am not privy to the reasoning behind management decisions and could not possibly provide an accurate or adequate response to our audience's queries in this respect.

Secondly, it is a matter of resources. If there were more of me I would be able to write a more personal reply such as this one, but unfortunately, there isn't! It would be impossible for me to reply to each email personally with a unique and individual answer to each one.

Thirdly, standard responses provide a consistent reply and reflect a more reliable answer to our audience.

What you call " Afro-Asian music" is actually a genre (or rather a huge cluster of genres) on your list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_music

Past positive feedback from listeners by phone, email and post has indicated how popular it is, and what an important role RN has as the virtually the only radio outlet for it in this country. Lucky Oceans and Doug Spencer are two very popular presenters and have a large following

However, due to the introduction of the Inside Sleeve on weekday afternoons, you are already hearing less of this genre and more new (Western) music. The genres include alternative folk, rock, pop, retro-rock, ballads, acoustica and electronica of various sorts. There is a heavy emphasis on new Australian artists, but not to the exclusion of international music.

There are other shows such as The Quiet Space, which provide even more specialisation.

Further afield as I have mentioned there is ABC Jazz, ABC Country, ABC Dig, ABC Classic and Triple J stations, all with a variety of genres from Bluegrass to Musical Theatre to Jazz to Religious music.

Playing commercial pop, "Classic rock of the 60's 70's and 80's", top 40, "easy listening" etc is probably not consistent with the expectations of our audience and these genres are already present at saturation levels in the world of commercial radio.