Hopes are high among Island broadcasters that Bermuda will not adopt proposed regulations which would force them to broadcast a minimum amount of locally-produced entertainment every day.

Musicians, broadcasters, promoters and members of the Broadcast Commission thrashed out the issue at a forum last week.

"I was clearly left with the feeling that there would be no regulation," said Darlene Ming, programme manager of Bermuda Broadcasting Company (BBC).

"If the Broadcasting Commission sees a clear demonstration on the part of broadcasters and equally a clear demonstration from the musicians - it would truly be a last resort. I came across feeling a lot more comfortable than I was going in."

While most musicians had mixed experience with broadcasters, they all agreed at the forum that more airplay would improve sales of their work.

And not all felt the need to impose a minimum local content law which is being pushed by the Bermuda Arts Council as one way to improve the lot of local musicians.

Broadcast Commission chair Tim Marshall made clear his personal preference for a voluntary policy instead of regulations.

"It's better to give human beings a chance to achieve something together before you pass laws," he said.

Broadcasting company representatives stated at the forum that they were doing their best to support local musicians.

Mr. Marshall described the meeting as quite productive and said that the commission was hoping that broadcasters would come up with policies that address the concerns so there would be no need for legislation.

"I don't know if you can say that," Mr. Marshall said when told of Ms Ming's optimism. "It all really depends on what policies are in place at the end of the day to do without legislation."

The broadcasters had demonstrated their commitment to such policies at the forum, he added. "Now we have to examine what is being proposed. So I think you'd expect more dialogue to see if something can be hammered out."

VSB's programme manager Mike Bishop told The Royal Gazette his company already has a policy in place that all announcers play at least "one or two" pieces of local music an hour and even more on special occasions.

He made a special plea to local musicians: "What we would like to see is artists who have music that is not on CD to come to us with their tapes or LPs so we can make masters on CD, which is what we've done with quite a few of our artists," he said.

The Bermuda Arts Council's specific proposal - that stations be required to play at least ten minutes of local music every hour - would be problematic for VSB in the morning hours, he said, because of programming realities.

"From our point of view we don't play that much of international music in the mornings," Mr. Bishop said.

He added that ten minutes an hour represented a "good chunk of time" and would mean repeating artists several times during the day.

"It would impact on us from both a listener point of view and a commercial point of view," Mr. Bishop continued.

"You might hear two or three Ras Mykkal or two or three Shine Hayward. But if you did that every day how well would it work for them ?"

The Commission meets on the issue again today.