Norway
There are no minimum talk quota for local radio stations. The broadcasting field in Norway are regulated by the Norwegian Broadcasting Act and the Norwegian Broadcasting Regulations. click here to read more....

Sweden
There are no minimum news and current affairs requirements by law in
Sweden. Content produced by these license holders is defined as
programmes produced solely for the applicant's own operations and which
are subject to an editing process. It is not enough to just play music
but the Swedish Radio and TV Act does not stipulate minutes or percent
per hour. The broadcasting committee is to monitor whether programmes
which have been broadcast are in accordance with this Act and the
conditions which may apply to broadcasts.

It is just the public service channel Sveriges Radio, who has to
broadcast news by it's remit...... click here to read more....

UK
No minimum news and current affairs requirement. Each license is reviewed on a station by station basis so if it is not appropriate to do 15, 20 or 25% news and current affairs then stations don't have to do it just to fill a quota.
There are no "quotas" as such with regard to news or current or affairs on
commercial stations in the UK. However, each station has its own Format
issued, based on promises made by applicants before awards are made as part of the application process. These Formats include certain obligations for news if such obligations formed part of the applicant's premise.

Germany

In Germany there is no direct regulation regarding the proportion of
news and current affairs programming on radio services although licencees may vary in what they must do by their license. The individual Länder (federal  states) have jurisdiction over radio and television broadcasting. As a result there is no centralized regulatory authority for broadcasting. Instead, there are 15 Landesmedienanstalten - LMAs (state regulatory authorities for
broadcasting) which deal with regulatory issues at the state level. The LMAs` primary objectives are licensing and monitoring of private radio and television channels throughout Germany to ensure content diversity, pluralism of opinions and compliance with regulations concerning the protection of minors and advertising......To read more click here.

Cyprus

There are some minimum news and current affairs requirements under law
for "general interest" stations but not for specialist stations such as sport or music stations. The quotas on news/ current affairs programmes, excluding news bulletins, to be followed by all stations (radio and TV), excluding thematic stations (i.e. stations that offer a certain type of programming e.g. music stations, sports stations etc), are the ones stipulated in section 26(1)(a)(i). These quotas apply to all radio stations offering “general interest” type of programming....read more CLICK HERE

New Zealand.
There are no minimum news and current affairs requirements here. The only form of a quota found in New Zealand broadcasting is a voluntary quota developed with the Radio Broadcasters Association to ensure that at least 20 percent of all music played on commercial radio is New Zealand music.

According to the Radio Broadcasters Association website (http://www.rba.co.nz/ISSUES.htm), the RBA operates a successful programme of voluntary targets that was on track for a target of 20% NZ music content on NZ commercial radio by the end of 2005.

Radio New Zealand functions under a charter which sets out their operating principles. A copy of the Radio New Zealand charter is available at http://www.radionz.co.nz/about/charter.

The Broadcasting Act 1976 is also online at
http://rangi.knowledge-basket.co.nz/gpacts/reprint/text/1976/an/132.html

The only requirements are that there is no political interference in news and current affairs. Fair point.

Section 44
2 No responsible Minister or any other Minister, and no person acting
by or on behalf of or at the direction of a responsible Minister or any other
Minister, may give a direction] in respect of

(a) a particular programme

(b) The gathering or presentation of news or the preparation or
presentation of current affairs programmes

The Broadcasting Act 1989 and its amendments can be found at the below
site: Use the search function and search “broadcasting”
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/browse_vw.asp?content-set=pal_statutes

Canada
There are no minimum news and current affairs requirements under Canadian broadcast law. Regarding Canadian commercial radio, formats
are not regulated. When licensing radio stations, the Commission attempts
to ensure that there is a variety of musical formats in a given community, so that, where possible, all tastes may be satisfied. At the same time, it does not initiate proposals for a particular format, but simply respond to applications received. Existing commercial radio stations also have the flexibility to adjust their programming to suit the tastes of their audiences and economic considerations. To survive, a station must ensure that both an audience and advertisers exist to support it. A station is thus free to adjust or change its format, presumably in response to changing market conditions.

As for news/talk quotas, there are none. In its 1998 Commercial Radio Policy, the Commission stated:
"With respect to commitments in other areas, such as levels of news and
spoken word, the Commission considers that setting across-the-board
requirements would not take into account the particular needs of different communities or the differing resources of licensees."

The Commission has therefore decided to use a case-by-case approach in
assessing programming commitments. For further reference, here are links to the Commercial Radio Policy and the related press release.

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Notices/1998/Pb98-41.htm
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/ENG/NEWS/RELEASES/1998/r980430-1.htm

CRTC Client Services

Czech Republic
In the Czech Republic there are officially no minimum talk / news and current affairs quotas for radio stations. However, every broadcaster has
certain amount of news or talk stated individually in license conditions that
are obligatory for him and checked by our Council for Radio and TV
Broadcasting as regulatory body. (License conditions are suggested by broadcaster himself and are important element for granting or non-granting a license. Briefly speaking, proportion of talk and news, once suggested by broadcaster and approved by the Council, become individual quotas which must be followed later on). 2-3 minutes per hour is usual, however, in general the frequency of news broadcast is different according to the part of the day. For example, in the peak time in the morning, between 6 -9 a.m. most stations broadcast news every 30 minutes, later on every hour, on the weekend - rarely.

Australia
There are no minimum quotas for news/current affairs on commercial radio in Australia. Commercial radio stations have a minimum quotas for music
performed by Australian's which vary from 5% to 25%. These are found in Code 4 of the Commercial Radio Codes of Practice.

Holland
According to the Dutch Media Act, but there are no specific percentages ordained for commercial radio.

"It depends on the radio station and the kind of licence they have. BNR
News Radio has to bring almost 100% news, current affairs and information. But in general all nationwide commercial radio stations (like Sky Radio, Slam FM, Radio 538) have to bring the news once every hour between 7 am and 11 pm."

Switzerland
Here there are no such requirements in current Swiss law that would
apply to some or even all radio stations. For some radio stations the obligation to broadcast information content is part of their individual licence - but this obligation is formulated in general terms and there is no fixed quota with a certain percentage of daily news. Generally it can be said that a young person's dance music radio will not be expected to broadcast as much news and current affairs issues as -for example - a traditional local radio station.
There is currently a revision of the Swiss Law on Radio and Television. The text of the new law will probably enter into force next year. There will be no such quota for radio or television stations in the forthcoming law as well. Quite the other way, the rules for the broadcasters (such as young person's dance music radios) will be liberated. Some of them will not even need a license any more (if they are just broadcast via internet or cable).

Poland
In Poland there is no legal requirements concerning news and current
affairs in our Broadcasting Act. Only art. 15.2 provide requirement that:

 "Radio and television broadcasters shall reserve at least 33% of their quarterly transmission time devoted to vocal-musical compositions for compositions performed in the Polish language."

(see Broadcasting Act http://www.krrit.gov.pl/angielska/act.pdf. Besides Regulation of The National Broadcasting Council of 2 June 1993 concerning the content of the application and detailed procedures of granting and withdrawing licences to provide radio and television programme services (see
http://www.krrit.gov.pl/angielska/reg_930602.pdf) define that  application form should contain information on "factual programmes, education, entertainment, music, arts, programmes for the family, children and young people, religion, advertising, and other". In practice, licences to provide radio programme services contains foregoing limits (especial for local radio, limits of local and regional affairs). Broadcasting Act and NBC Regulations you can find on website: http://www.krrit.gov.pl/angielska/index.htm

Malta
The Broadcasting Act and Codes relating to News and Current Affairs
programmes may be found on our website : http://www.ba-malta.org
There are no requirements relating to minimum talk content or quotas for
news and current affairs programmes for radio stations broadcasting on
a national basis. Although the licence conditions could impose such requirements, they do not in fact do so. What they do lay down is that the station is to provide a news service as laid down by article 13 (2) (d) of the Broadcasting Act. This applies to radio stations broadcasting on a national basis but not to community radio services which may however broadcast local community news. The licence conditions also set out the standards and requirements of the programme content and the mix or genre of programmes to be broadcast. These are agreed to when the station is first issued with a licence and the station is obliged to honour to fulfill its promise of performance.

Denmark

Denmark has no general minimum quotas for radio, talk or other dimensions.
Though in specific licenses they have requirements of amount of news:

1) local radio (commercial or non-commercial), was until 1.1.2006 licensed by about 100 Local Boards of radio and TV on a municipal basis. The Local Boards had the competence to form a local media policy, and the stations could also be obliged by the promises of their applications for the license. Therefore many local stations have various conditions in their license about some minimum of local news or local content in general. Just now, after we took over the competence concerning local radio, we are going through about 300 radio licenses to check these conditions.

2) national commercial radio: We have two FM-licenses, sold on auction in 2003(conditions attached). FM 5 was bought by Sky Radio and was closed by Sky after two years (the yearly fee is 54 mio. DKr or 7-8 mio. Euro). The next one FM 6 has no obligations of news or talk; in fact they bring both.

3) DR (the traditional PSB, like RTE, but fully financed from the license fee) does not have minimum quotas of talk or news, but on its four FM-stations it has different, targeted channels: P 1 (talk, journalism), P 2 (serious music and culture/talk), P 3 (pop music with short news), P 4 (regionalised news and talk, music for the 40+ target)

Austria
There is no minimum quota on news or current affairs for radio stations
by law in Austria.

In some cases, when the programme scheme or type proposed by the licence
applicant includes such a quota, this could be included in the licence.
There is no such case in Austria in the moment.

The Communications Report 2004 has more details. This report includes
information on the broadcasting and telecommunication division of RTR
as well as current market data.

The Communications Report 2004 could be downloaded at the following link:
http://www.rtr.at/web.nsf/englisch/Portfolio_Berichte_nach+
Kategorie_Berichte_KBericht2004?

Luxembourg

There are no minimum news and current affairs requirements. The Luxembourg broadcasing law does not contain any dispositions about minimum
talk/current affairs quotas on radio stations.

c/o Unabhängige Landesanstalt für
Rundfunk und neue Medien (ULR)
Europabeauftragter
Schloßstraße 19
24103 Kiel

USA
There are no minimum news and current affairs requirements for radio
stations in the USA. Individual radio and television station licensees are responsible for selecting all broadcast matter and for determining how their stations can best serve their communities. Licensees are responsible for
choosing the entertainment programming and the programs concerning
local issues, news, public affairs, religion, sports events and other subjects to be aired by the station. They also decide how their programs, including call-in shows, will be conducted and whether or not to edit or reschedule material for broadcasting.

FCC
TSR43
888-225-5322

What the European Broadcast Union says:

There are no hard and fast rules for news and current affairs quotas in
national media legislations in Europe. Some radio stations have quotas for
national music/very few, but news and current affairs are left to the programme schedules of the respective channels depending on their targeted audiences, formats and thematic profiles. There are also all-news radios, but this is a different story. In general, media legislation in Europe rests on the principle of subsidiary - i.e. it is left to the national legislations to decide on the scope, format, delivery and range of radio and TV channels according to the national specifics.

Raina Konstantinova
Director
EBU Radio Department