Move to make youth radio station play Latvia-made music

Take note – story published 6 years ago

DJs and workers at Latvia's national youth radio station, pieci.lv (with which LSM is affiliated) have reacted with surprise to moves by its regulator to make it play only Latvia-made music, reports Latvian Radio.

The news came via Ivars Āboliņš, a member of the National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEPLP) which is the institution that represents the public interest in the field of electronic mass media speaking at an NEPLP press conference May 11.

Āboliņš said that though discussion on the subject would continue, he had a clear vision for the future development of the channel: "We have to change its social role and to define the channel as Latvian music channel. In this way we will maintain, defend and strengthen the Latvian language, and Latvian cultural values," said the former acting editor of the Latvian edition of Playboy.

"[pieci.lv] has to be a Latvian music channel. We can't finance the UK Top 40 from state money," he told a press conference - though as anyone who regularly listens to the channel will attest, pieci.lv's offering is usually much more eclectic than what fills the British hit parade.

Currently pieci.lv does play Latvia-made music but also a great deal of popular and cutting edge music from the US, UK, European and other main pop music markets. You can judge its content for yourself by listening live HERE.

The Latvian Radio 2 channel specializes in its all-Latvian music lineup.

The NEPLP is also reportedly considering changes to the LR3 Klasika channel to turn it from a music channel specializing in classical, jazz and world music into a general cultural channel.

(NOTE: A previous version of this story stated that NEPLP was planning to make the channel 'monolingual'. However after being contacted by Mr Āboliņš it was amended to clarify that the proposals are to feature Latvian-made rather than only Latvian-language music. In subsequent tweets Mr Abolins added that talking about a ban on foreign music was "lies and supposition" and added the previously unrelated detail that NEPLP believes the proportion or percentage of Latvian to foreign music "should be 90-10")


 

 

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