1970 radio ban

The Australian 1970 Radio Ban was a "pay for play" dispute in the Australian music industry that lasted from May till mid-October 1970. During this period, a simmering disagreement between commercial radio stations and major record labels resulted in major UK and Australian pop songs being refused airplay on Australian commercial radio stations. The government-owned ABC -- which had its own copyright and royalty arrangement with recording and music publishing companies -- did not take part in the dispute.

In early 1969, following the enactment of the new Copyright Act 1968, a group of recording companies -- including most of the founding members the newly-formed Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA) -- decided to scrap a long-standing royalty agreement with Australian commercial radio stations that dated back to the 1950s. The recording companies included the major overseas labels Polygram, EMI, RCA, CBS and Warner and Australia's leading local recording company, Festival.

The record labels demanded the payment of a new levy for pop records played on commercial radio, claiming that they were providing free programming for radio stations, which had traditionally been supplied with free promotional copies of new records. The commercial radio lobby baulked at the proposed new levy, arguing that they were in turn providing large amounts of free promotion for the records they played.

After negotiations between the parties broke down in May 1970, the recording companies imposed a six-month embargo on the supply of free promotional records to radio stations. In retaliation, commercial radio boycotted all new major label releases and, crucially, they also refused to include records from these companies in their weekly chart surveys -- a serious matter at the time, since there was then only one Australian national pop chart (published by Go-Set magazine) and most Top 40 charts were collated and by individual radio stations in major cities and towns.

As a result of the ban, many British hits like The Beatles' "The Long and Winding Road" and Mary Hopkin's "Knock, Knock, Who's There?" gained only limited exposure in Australia. Some local groups released cover versions of British hits, the most prominent being "In the Summertime" by the Mixtures, a cover of Mungo Jerry's hit. Melbourne band Jigsaw and Sydney band Autumn both had success with their respective versions of Christie's Yellow River. Melbourne singer Liv Maessen's version of "Knock, Knock, Who's There" earned the singer the first gold record ever awarded to an Australian female artist. For a short period, the ban had the inadvertent effect of putting more local musicians to air than ever before, and also opened the door to the 'underground'.

The events of the Radio Ban are still poorly documented and its long-term effects are still being debated, but some commentators have suggested that the overall effect of the Ban was negative for Australian performers. Music charts from the period indicate that in the years immediately following the Ban, there was a significant reduction in the number of Australian acts who scored major chart placings. The Go-Set charts for 1972, for example, indicate that only two Australia acts (Colleen Hewett and Blackfeather) had national #1 hits in Australia that year, and in 1973 no Australian act scored a #1 hit.