Quote:
Originally Posted by ken0042
Truth be told; they often aren't. I also don't have exact numbers to back this up, but the radio stations are required to play a seriously high amount of Canadian Content; somewhere around 30%. And that CanCon gets broken down even further. For example, because Bryan Adams uses American writers, producers, and musicians; his music only counts as something like 10% Canadian.
So CJAY can play 1 Nickelback song, then go on to play 2 other non-Canadian songs. Whereas if they played a Bryan Adams song, they would have to play 3 of his songs in a row to be able to play one non-Canadian song.
|
That's not completely accurate. The Can-Con regulations require a station to play a minimum of 30% Canadian content (there are time regulations as well to prevent stations from overloading on the Can-Con in the middle of the night when no one is listening). The Can-Con rules must be met over a week-long period, so it isn't a situation where a station must play 3 Canadian songs in every 10 songs it plays. It just has to average out to 30% over the week.
Every Can-Con qualified song counts equally towards the regulations, but not all "Canadian" songs qualify for Can-Con (and some "non-Canadian" songs do qualify).
If you pick up a Canadian CD, you'll see somewhere on the label a little circle divided into quarters, each quarter has a letter inside of it. The letters are M (music), A (artist), P (production), and L (lyrics), together the circle is known as the MAPL (maple) label. A song receives a mark in each quadrant if that aspect of the song qualifies as "Canadian". In order for the song to count as Can-Con for radio play, it must fill at least 2 slots in the MAPL circle.
For example, a song performed by Shania Twain and written and produced by Mutt Lange would only qualify for the A in the MAPL (and would not count as Can-Con). A song performed by Rod Stewart, written by Robbie Robertson would qualify for the M & L in the MAPL (and would count as Can-Con).
The problem that occured with Bryan Adams in the early 90s was that he co-wrote an album with Mutt Lange. As a result, the songs didn't qualify for the M or L because both the music and lyrics were co-written by an American. Because the album was produced outside of Canada, the songs only qualified for the A, and didn't count as Can-Con. Because there was a backlash against this ruling, the rules were changed so that any song that was co-written by a Canadian would qualify for half of both the M & L (to combine as one quarter of the MAPL), so as long as the song was performed by a Canadian, it would qualify for Can-Con.
It's been over a decade since I worked in radio and had to know this stuff, so things may have changed, but I believe the rules are still the same.
Anyway...I like beer.
