Why Are Canadian Regulators Telling Music TV Channels How Many Videos They Can Play?

Culture

from the going-overboard dept

Tue, Feb 22nd 2011 7:07pm — Mike Masnick

Pickle Monger points us to a bit of regulatory micromanaging up in Canada, where the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has been carefully regulating exactly how many music videos various music channels can play. This results in silly situations, such as the case where it denies a request by one channel who wants to play fewer music videos... and then three months later, it denies a request from a different channel who wants to play more music videos.

Three months after the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission told MuchMusic it can't air fewer music videos than it already does, the same federal agency has denied a request to play more of them on a cable music channel that's become a launching pad for dozens of independent Canadian artists.

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Filed Under: canada, crtc, music videos, regulations

16 Comments

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Trails (profile), 22 Feb 2011 @ 7:25pm

It's a tool for control.
CRTC has had this for a while and uses it to control programming. They used it to prevent Much from airing Ren & Stimpy back in the 90's when people started complaining about the show.

Lame, overbearing, close minded, must be the CRTC.
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kyle clements (profile), 22 Feb 2011 @ 10:15pm

If you this this is bad, you should look up what else the CRTC is doing...

I their their sole purpose is to make the FCC look good.
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kyle clements (profile), 22 Feb 2011 @ 10:19pm

Re:
oops...

*I THINK their...*
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Dan Payment, 23 Feb 2011 @ 4:55am

Why Are Canadian Regulators Telling Music TV...
This is nothing. If you go to openmedia.ca, you'll see the list of real sins committed by the CRTC in the name of protectionism. They've regulated how much Canadian music must be played per hour, they've censored the lyrics of songs (since rescinded, but they'll do it again,) they've approved Usage-Based Billing (UBB) which will kill innovation on the Canadian portion of the Internet (it's only been postponed, it hasn't been cancelled!)

It basically has been a useless moneypit for the taxpayers' dollars, particularly when you look and see that most of the executive are former CBC or Bell Canada employees. They have a better interest in protecting their stock earnings from these companies, instead of protecting the consummer. Time for them to GO!
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rebrad (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 6:19am

A Good Example
A good example of moderate national socialism at work.
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Vic, 23 Feb 2011 @ 6:32am

I wonder if they also regulate how many news stories can be aired per hour or per day. And how many sports scores can be communicated during a day. And what percentage of those must be games involving Canadian teams?
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Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 6:38am

Re: It's a tool for control.
And I thought they were just bought off when they approved UBB.

No wonder CRTC want to limit internet use. CRTC loses all control when everyone has choices of what to watch/listen to.
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Punmaster (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 7:19am

Re: Why Are Canadian Regulators Telling Music TV...
Actually, I think the regulating of lyrics (Dire Straits' Money for Nohting) was done by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, not the CRTC. In fact, the CRTC sent a letter to the CBSC telling them to review that decision.

As to the Canadian Content regulations, I'm old enough to remember when there wasn't much of a Canadian music industry. It's just way cheaper and simpler to let American music and entertainment do the heavy lifting, but it doesn't promote Canadian culture.

Canada sits next to the loudest, most prolific provider of entertainment in the world. Without putting these regulations in place, there would be no Canadian stories being told.

Of course, there also wouldn't have been Corner Gas, so it's a mixed blessing.

I do think that the CRTC needs to be revised substantially, and given a mandate to protect consumers from the Bell/Rogers duopoly, but not everything they do is bad.
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ChrisB (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 7:39am

Re: Re: Why Are Canadian Regulators Telling Music TV...
Much Music got a monopoly for music when it started. This was basically to keep MTV out of Canada. Now, of course, MTV rarely plays music videos (because of the internet and YouTube). Much Music wants to try and change its programming but can't, because it was granted a monopoly with specific terms. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2011 @ 8:57am

Re:
They should probably regulate comments like yours. You shouldn't be allowed to post more than 1 ridiculous comment per day, and it must not involve Canada at 25%, so watch out for the rest of the day.
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BigKeithO (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 9:56am

Re: Re: Why Are Canadian Regulators Telling Music TV...
Canada produces good musical acts, these acts get picked up in the US. To say that forcing radio play of Canadian acts is the only reason we have Canadian acts is crazy. I'm sure most people don't even realize just how many big name bands are Canadian these days, we just keep pumping out indie rock acts.

Arcade Fire, The Acorn, Attack in Black, Bedouin Soundclash, Constantines, Danko Jones, Death from Above 1979, Metric, Mobile, The New Pornographers, Tokyo Police Club just to name a few. Look at that list, I think Canadians make up a large portion of Coachella each year. It isn't the CRTC causing this, its the fact that Canadian bands are GOOD that does this.
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btr1701 (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 9:59am

Intrusiveness
Why in the name of god is it any business of the government how many music videos a TV station is playing on a given day?
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hmm, 23 Feb 2011 @ 10:08am

simple answer
Can someone please define a music-video for me?
does it have to be a specific length?
lets assume the channel is FORCED to play 100 music videos, but it only wants to play 1....simple answer..play 99 1-second videos.....If it wants to play more than 100 videos...just create a "new" merged video that seamlessly blends many videos into each other without a gap between.......
Or can they be forced against their will (and against the laws of nature) to play stuff by specific 'artists' like avril lavine or justin bieber?
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kyle clements (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 11:39am

Re: Intrusiveness
"Why in the name of god is it any business of the government how many music videos a TV station is playing on a given day?"

When a TV station receives a good chunk of it's funding from the government, it can expect a few strings to be attached.
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btr1701 (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 4:30pm

Re: Re: Intrusiveness
> When a TV station receives a good chunk of
> it's funding from the government, it can
> expect a few strings to be attached.

All the more reason not to take money from the government. The government has no business taking money from its citizens so it can fund TV programs and dictate how many music videos are played each day.

I guarantee if I were a Canadian citizen, I'd much rather my government leave that money in my pocket and let TV shows play whatever and however many music videos they want.
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Punmaster (profile), 24 Feb 2011 @ 11:06am

Re: Re: Re: Why Are Canadian Regulators Telling Music TV...
I'm sorry, but I disagree - the number of good musical acts from the time BEFORE the CRTC imposed Canadian Content Regulations (1971) is much smaller.

All of the bands named benefit DIRECTLY from CanCon regulations, because they get airplay from it. Yes, they're good bands, but so were a whole bunch of bands relegated to obscurity pre-1971.

Like I said in my original comment - it was WAY cheaper and easier to play American content back then - and because the big US recording companies were marketing the hell out of their records, also more of a sure bet.

Read the wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_content for some background on it.
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