Qantas has officially pressed the stop button on its in-flight entertainment music catalogue, because apparently less than 10% of passengers are actually listening.
“Our research showed that fewer and fewer of our customers are tuning into the radio and music channels,” a spokesperson for the flying kangaroo tells Australian Frequent Flyer.
“It also indicated that many passengers on both domestic and international flights bring their own device with music already downloaded.”
Following a review, Qantas’s radio stations, music playlists and CD library collections have now all been removed from the in-flight entertainment catalogue on domestic and some international flights (Denpasar, Noumea, Port Moresby and New Zealand), with the airline to apparently replace them with a limited number of podcasts.
The reaction online has been pretty unimpressed so far, with the head of Aussie music rights organisation APRA AMCOS suggesting that sh*tty curation could be to blame for passengers turning away from the airline’s playlists:
Qantas says no-one listens to their music channels/selections. The lack lustre curation of music focused audio/video could be the cause! @Qantas we'd love to talk to you about taking Aussie music to the world – get onboard! https://t.co/QFSmoYmk4m via @AustFreqFlyer
— Dean Ormston (@deanapra) September 17, 2018
Other Aussie music pundits have also weighed in with their thoughts on why removing the music won’t, ahem, fly.
Read what they had to say below.
So @Qantas have axed music from in-flight entertainment because "nobody listens". I would like to fact check this because actually, 6 people (including myself) do! Bring back the muuuuuusic QF!!!! pic.twitter.com/9ugQfNEt16
— Bridget Hustwaite (@BHustwaite) September 17, 2018
Disappointing mate. Especially in light of one of the world’s biggest pop stars Troye Sivan saying he discovered Aussie fave Gordi via Qantas in flight radio…some reading material for Q below https://t.co/ftQFHpPKsM
— Adrian McGruther ::|| su:ku:ya (@sagebass) September 17, 2018
We’re an Australian band that would love your support @Qantas. We know it’s in you to rethink this decision…And we have just the song for your music relaunch campaign. It’s called Get On Board – https://t.co/yXyaBaFMmB https://t.co/z7E4Dy3Sr3
— Pirra (@Pirramusic) September 17, 2018
