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Auction of airwaves 'will end musicals'
By Alexa Baracaia, Evening Standard 04.01.07
Andrew Lloyd-Webber said the technology would spell 'the end of musicals'
West End musicals could be silenced forever, Andrew Lloyd Webber warned today - amid plans to sell off the technology used for wireless microphones on-stage.
Communications regulator Ofcom has said it will auction off the chunk of airwaves currently reserved for wireless mics to the highest bidder in 2012.
But Lord Lloyd-Webber, who first introduced the revolutionary radio technology to the theatre in 1971 in his hit Jesus Christ Superstar, said it would spell "the end of musicals".
He claimed producers would not have the money to compete against the likes of the mobile phone networks to buy the spectrum.
He said: "We can't go back to the cabled microphones of the Fifties and Sixties: it would be like asking audiences to go back to a version of the musical Stone Age."
Lord Lloyd-Webber said a portion of the spectrum, known as Channel 69, currently reserved for theatres, TV production companies and concert venues, should be sold at affordable prices.
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Not only would this affect West End musicals, but also the production of films and television programmes. Many feature films use numerous radiomicrophones, if the American producers cannot work the way they like here, then they (and their money) will go to countries where they can. Just when Gordon Brown's last budget was designed to encourage them to make films here.
Many television programmes also use many radio frequencies, not just for radiomicrophones but also for radio cameras and communications between members of the crew. If these frequencies were sold off to mobile phone giants at prices small production companies couldn't afford it would result in some very dull television.
- Nigel Woodford, Richmond Surrey
