Canadian content


Canadian content refers to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission requirements, derived from the Broadcasting Act of Canada, that radio and television broadcasters must produce and broadcast a certain percentage of content that was at least partly written, produced, presented, or otherwise contributed to by persons from Canada. CanCon also refers to that content itself, and, more generally, to cultural and creative content that is Canadian in nature.
Current Canadian content percentages are as follows: radio airplay is 35%. Some stations are required to air a higher percentage based on their "promise of performance" information during their license submission. Broadcast television is 55% CanCon yearly or 50% daily.

Origins

In enforcing the Broadcasting Act, the CRTC is obligated to ensure that "each element of the Canadian broadcasting system shall contribute in an appropriate manner to the creation and presentation of Canadian programming", and that every broadcast undertaking " maximum use, and in no case less than predominant use, of Canadian creative and other resources in the creation and presentation of programming".

Radio

Music radio

For music, the Canadian content requirements are referred to as the MAPL system, referring to the music, artist, performance and lyrics.

Criteria

To qualify as Canadian content a musical selection must generally fulfil at least two of the following conditions :
  • M — the music is composed entirely by a Canadian
  • A — the music is, or the lyrics are, performed principally by a Canadian
  • P — the musical selection consists of a performance that is:
  • *Recorded wholly in Canada, or
  • *Performed wholly in Canada and broadcast live in Canada.
  • L — the lyrics are written entirely by a Canadian
For the purposes of MAPL, a "Canadian" refers to a citizen, permanent resident, someone whose "ordinary place of residence" has been in Canada prior to their contribution to the musical selection, or someone who is a CRTC licensee.
A musical selection may also qualify as Canadian content if it:
  • Is an instrumental performance of a composition by a Canadian.
  • Is a "performance of a musical composition that a Canadian has composed for instruments only."
  • Was performed live or recorded after September 1, 1991, meets the criteria for either artist or performance, and a Canadian receives at least half of the credit for music and lyrics.
Some stations – especially those playing formats where there may be a limited number of Canadian recordings suitable for airplay, such as classical, jazz or oldies, may be allowed by the CRTC to meet Canadian content targets as low as 20 per cent. Stations in Windsor, Ontario, are also permitted to meet lower Canadian content targets, due to Windsor's proximity to the Metro Detroit media market in the United States. Community radio and campus-based community radio stations often choose to meet higher Canadian content levels than commercial broadcasters, because of their mandate to support independent and underground and provide content not readily available on commercial radio or the CBC; however, this is a voluntary commitment made by these stations rather than a core CRTC requirement, and CanCon requirements may be lower for campus and community stations as they often air large quantities of category 3 music.
On satellite radio services, Canadian content regulation is applied in aggregate over the whole subscription package. Sirius XM Canada produces channels focused on Canadian music, talk, and spoken word programming, and carries the CBC's main national networks. All of these channels are incorporated into the overall lineup of the U.S. Sirius XM Radio service. The CBC also produced channels carried on the service, such as CBC Radio 3, but these channels were quietly dropped from Sirius XM in 2022 in favour of making them exclusive to the CBC's internet radio platform CBC Music, which does not require any subscription.

History

Following an extensive public hearing process organized by the CRTC, the MAPL system, created by Stan Klees, was adopted in 1971 to define and identify Canadian content in pieces of music for the purposes of increasing exposure of Canadian music on Canadian radio through content regulations governing a percentage of airplay to be devoted to Canadian music. The percentage was increased to 30% in the 1980s, and to 35% effective January 3, 1999. However, most new commercial radio stations licensed since 1999 have been licensed at 40%.
Before the MAPL system was established in 1971, Canadian music was regarded with indifference by Canadian radio, and during the 1960s, Canadian radio was dominated by British or American acts. This was a major hurdle for Canadian musicians, since they could not gain attention in their home country without having a hit single in the United States or Europe first, which itself proved to be a nearly impossible task in the 1960s. This eventually changed when The Guess Who broke through in the United States in March 1969 with a string of hits, which was soon followed by a "Canadian chart boom" in which The Guess Who's success was followed by the entries of Gordon Lightfoot, Anne Murray, Edward Bear, Canada Goose, Mashmakhan, Motherlode, The Original Caste, and The Poppy Family onto the charts by 1970. Even after MAPL was implemented in the early 1970s, some radio stations were criticized for ghettoizing their Canadian content to dedicated program blocks, in off-peak listening hours such as early mornings or after midnight, during which the music played would be almost entirely Canadian — thus having the effect of significantly reducing how many Canadian songs would actually have to be played during peak listening times. These program blocks became mockingly known as "beaver hours," featuring Canadian songs selected from the "beaver bin." This practice is now reduced by CRTC regulations stipulating that CanCon percentages must be met between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., rather than allowing a station to save all their Canadian content for off-peak hours.
Artists who were active in the early CanCon era in the 1970s and 1980s have noted that their music was often dismissed by Canadian audiences as inferior product, propped up by quotas rather than quality, if they were unable to replicate their Canadian success internationally. Yet, at the same time, artists who did break through internationally also ran the risk of becoming dismissed by Canadian audiences as no longer truly Canadian.
By the 1980s, there were a range CanCon requirements depending on the radio band and music programming format. AM radio required 30% of the music broadcast in a day be Canadian, and that these selections be "reasonably distributed throughout the broadcast day". Five percent of all records had to be two-count Canadian. FM radio had different requirements; the CRTC's Peter G. Fleming explained in 1985 that "perceiving AM as low brow and FM as high brow wanted to ensure the status quo". Hit music was limited on FM radio by restricting a single song to 3 plays per day and a playlist to only 50% top-40 hits. FM stations had to commit to play a certain format and each of these FM formats had a different CanCon quotas.
The 1991 half credit for music and lyrics provision was added after Canadian Bryan Adams' album Waking Up the Neighbours did not qualify as Canadian as Adams co-wrote both the music and the lyrics with South African producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange, and he did not primarily record the album in Canada, and therefore only fulfilled one of the criteria fully. It was noted that if Adams had written all the lyrics, and Lange all the music, the collaboration would have counted as Canadian content. As a result, under CRTC regulations of the time, none of the album's songs were considered Canadian content.
In December 2022, the CRTC announced a proposal to update the MAPL system to account for changes in the music industry and reduce regulatory burden. The proposal would remove the "performance" condition entirely, and only require lyrics and music to be principally written or composed by a Canadian to qualify as Canadian content.

Talk radio and American syndicated programming

There are no specific rules on Canadian content in regard to spoken word programming. The lone restriction is that the station must have a working studio within the region it broadcasts, which prohibits the use of entirely satellite-operated stations.
As in the United States in the 1980s, the trend for AM stations in Canada in the 1990s was to apply for an FM broadcasting license or move away from music in favour of talk radio formats. The total amount of Canadian-produced content declined as broadcasters could license syndicated radio programs produced in the U.S., while the Cancon regulations were conceived to apply to music only, and not to spoken-word programming. This became particularly controversial in 1998 when stations in Toronto and Montreal started airing The Howard Stern Show from New York City during prime daytime hours. Stern was forced off the air not because of Canadian content, but because the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council reprimanded the stations broadcasting Stern numerous times for Stern's comments, which prompted the two stations to drop him in short order. Stern would later move exclusively to satellite radio.
Spoken word programming that is imported from the United States tends to be aired in off-peak hours and pertain to either general interest content or sports radio. The most popular American conservative talk radio programs have never been carried in Canada, mostly because of return on investment: the shows traditionally charge high rights fees but have substantially less resonance or relevance to Canadian audiences.
American shows that combine talk and music, such as Blair Garner, Elvis Duran, Delilah and John Tesh, usually have special playlists for airing in Canada to assist in meeting Canadian content requirements. Because of the different requirements, American syndicated oldies programs were widely popular in Canada, since those shows usually did need to not substitute Canadian songs, due in part to a fairly large library of Canadian musicians already in rotation in the format and the format had looser standards. In other formats, an American syndicated program sometimes is supplemented with an all-Canadian program; for instance, CKMX, during its country era, broadcast Country Countdown USA and America's Grand Ole Opry Weekend along with the Canadian syndicated programs Canadian Country Spotlight and Hugh McLennan's Spirit of the West, the last of which is also carried by several U.S. stations. American syndicated series are usually played in "off peak" and weekend hours.
A notable exception to the majority-Canadian spoken word programming came in 2012 when Astral Media introduced CKSL and CHAM, two stations in southern Ontario, as full-time affiliates of 24/7 Comedy Radio, a service of the U.S.-based Cumulus Media Networks. CHAM met its studio requirement by maintaining a locally based interstitial host.