Ecuador: New law requires local talent to be played on radio airwaves

Miamiherald.com reported that Ecuador’s airwaves are about to undergo a domestic invasion. Thanks to a recently passed communications law, half of all music played on the radio will have to be homegrown. The move has station managers scrambling for local talent, musicians tuning up their guitars and long-languishing record companies dusting off their equipment. The government hopes the law can turn this nation of 15 million — perhaps best known for the Galápagos Islands and as the first asylum choice of NSA-leaker Edward Snowden — into a musical powerhouse capable of fending off talent from Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and the United States. Local artists have been crowded out of the market for years, said Karina Santiana, general director of the Ecuadorean Society of Artists, Interpreters and Musicians, or SARIME. Payola having to pay for airtime — was rampant, she said, locals couldn’t break into radio and it deflated the entire industry. Read Article

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