Iain Shedden on the inaugural Country Music Radio Seminar Australia

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/festival-airs-its-country-charm/story-fn9d2mxu-1226256663164

Excerpt from
Festival airs its country charm
Iain Shedden

Yet the subject of how to make Australian country music hip and therefore more profitable hasn't disappeared completely. On Australia Day, the inaugural Country Music Radio Australia Seminar was held in Tamworth. The main subject for discussion was how to get Aussie country on to commercial radio, something with which the genre has always struggled. Harvey, who is also on the board of a NSW central coast radio station, was able to bring two perspectives to the debate and had welcome theories about how to achieve this goal. As an artist, buying advertising with radio stations on which you are being interviewed or performing was one alternative, he said wearing his radio hat.

"Some of the artists may be unaware of that possibility, that for a small amount of money they can actually have their album advertised on a station," Harvey said. "That way they can have 20 ads a day running for their album. There's no pressure to do it, but we do let artists know about it. We need to educate our artists that they need to engage radio stations more. They need to become friends of the presenters and the programmers, and if you can spend a couple of dollars on the station too and buy some spots, that's the secret."

The chief point made by Harvey and other commentators at this debate was that there aren't enough new stars emerging from Australian country music to sustain its commercial success, never mind improve it, on Austereo and elsewhere.

The seminar's organiser, Australian promoter Rob Potts, was the most vocal about the dearth of Aussie talent, at least talent that has the potential to break the Australian charts in the way US artist Taylor Swift has done. As he pointed out, it has been five years since an Australian artist or group (the McClymonts) had a gold album in Australia.

"If you go back to the era of Lee Kernaghan, Urban, Adam Harvey, Beccy Cole and Gina Jeffreys emerging, we were having a raft of gold and platinum-selling artists," Potts said. "We had a massive resurgence of this music in Australia. As soon as we stopped having those gold-selling artists, our industry started slowing down. We're feeling that across the board and we may not want to admit it, but Australian country music right now is the unhealthiest it has been for a long time."

As a promoter, Potts has been responsible for bringing Nashville big guns Faith Hill, Tim McGraw and Alan Jackson to Australia, and the success here also of our greatest country export, Urban, proves there are potentially large audiences for up-and-coming talent.

In the meantime, Australia's country music fraternity should be fairly proud of what it has, in Tamworth and beyond. Even without the stars, there's a wealth of great roots bubbling underneath.

Urban, speaking on video at the awards to accept his male artist of the year trophy, stressed how important to him it was that he had been able to establish a fan base at home in Australia, aided by a successful tour here last year.

Earlier in the evening, Urban's youthful mullet made several appearances as the audience was treated to a 40-year retrospective on video of Tamworth's colourful past. His rise from Star Maker talent quest winner to international superstar leaves some room for optimism for the industry at large.

The most satisfying thing about Tamworth 2012, however, was that it seemed like an event more relaxed with its place, with less of an image complex and, in the case of the awards, less ambitious about trying to be something it is not. If both can sustain that attitude, Tamworth can remain a worthy celebration of Australian culture, country-style.

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