Should all radio work be unpaid?

[Lat-Literal]

This would separate the true enthusiasts from those who are in it for the money or see it as just another day in any old office.

It would also free up money for programmes, orchestras etc.

This forum has functioned perfectly well for almost a decade without anyone needing to be paid - and it has rarely been off air.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Is this the Big Society?

Replacing library staff with unpaid volunteers. Making police redundant before inviting them as unpaid community police.

Personally, I refuse even to use self-checkouts in supermarkets, as they only exist for one purpose - to enable their staff to be sacked.

[MrGongGong]

No

[Lat-Literal]

But there is a bit of a contradiction between the sentiments being expressed and the happiness in providing free contributions of excellent quality to this forum.

Radio work for no pay would enable better salaries to be paid to in house musicians etc.

And the listener would not hear the sort of weary presentation style that implies:

Hi, I'm Petire Hosken - I've just got to get this blessed programme finished and then I'm off for a week's holiday.

[oddoneout]

But there is a bit of a contradiction between the sentiments being expressed and the happiness in providing free contributions of excellent quality to this forum.

Radio work for no pay would enable better salaries to be paid to in house musicians etc.

And the listener would not hear the sort of weary presentation style that implies:

Hi, I'm Petire Hosken - I've just got to get this blessed programme finished and then I'm off for a week's holiday.

Whether unpaid or paid the quality will be affected by management and the policy makers; if those are poor then the end result will be also. Managing volunteers is different from managing employees, and the poor quality of management generally in the UK causes problems in the voluntary sector as it does in the paid.
I'm not sure the forum is a good comparator; I don't have to contribute if I don't want to and neither do I have to commit to doing so at set times.

[Dave2002]

Radio work for no pay would enable better salaries to be paid to in house musicians etc.
.

Why should the musicians be paid? Wouldn’t they play better if they did it for “love”?

[rauschwerk]

No, no and again no. To take just one example, the splendidly combative discussion between Philip Dodd and Jordan B Peterson the other night https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0144txn would surely not have occurred at all if no-one had been paid!

[MrGongGong]

Why should the musicians be paid? Wouldn’t they play better if they did it for “love”?

Quite right
How about suggesting this to the mechanics next time your car needs fixing?

[cloughie]

Is this the Big Society?

Replacing library staff with unpaid volunteers. Making police redundant before inviting them as unpaid community police.

Personally, I refuse even to use self-checkouts in supermarkets, as they only exist for one purpose - to enable their staff to be sacked.

I agree with all that, Alps, particularly the supermarket bit, radio work should not be unpaid, but some should be paid less than now, and maybe others more!

[cloughie]

Why should the musicians be paid? Wouldn’t they play better if they did it for “love”?

How unfair, surely musicians have a right to make a living. Again some are overpaid because of their ‘name’ rather than their talent, but are you really saying that good musicians who have invested so much in their own training and hard work over a number of years should do it purely for love? Get real!

[french frank]

What, rope people in from hospital radio and student radio stations?

[Mal]

We should be paid for contributing to this forum, it makes the BBC executives look good, helping keep their wages (too) high. We are willing slaves of the BBC fat cats!

[french frank]

We should be paid for contributing to this forum, it makes the BBC executives look good, helping keep their wages (too) high. We are willing slaves of the BBC fat cats!

Well, perhaps the BBC should be paying for this forum (though we all know the BBC can't afford messageboards - that's why they closed all their own).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What, rope people in from hospital radio and student radio stations?

Couldn't be any worse than some of what's already on offer?

I think Dave2K2 was being sardonic ... but his post did remind me of a B&B owner I knew when I worked in East Sussex, who thought it a splendid idea for some of my Music students to give a little performance for his guests one Christmas. He was genuinely bewildered at the thought that the 18-year-olds wouldn't give up part of their holiday to perform for the sheer love of it, and that they actually wanted to be paid for their services - my pointing out that, whilst he loved his own job, there'd be no chance of his offering free accommodation to his guests because of this couldn't penetrate his bewilderment. He was an amateur pianist ("I love playing Gershwin; if you hit a wrong note, you can just slither up the chromatic scale until you get to the right one"!) and really thought that playing an instrument was something that people should do because they loved Music.

[Serial_Apologist]

Quite right
How about suggesting this to the mechanics next time your car needs fixing?

One day "we" will in general be able to do without money of any kind - but for that to happen will depend on getting rid of competition for markets, low earnings and resources; i.e. capitalist relations of production and distribution.