{"id":13755,"date":"2012-02-27T10:28:39","date_gmt":"2012-02-27T15:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=13755"},"modified":"2012-02-27T10:28:39","modified_gmt":"2012-02-27T15:28:39","slug":"goodbye-and-good-riddance-to-the-architect-of-canadian-content-media-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/02\/27\/goodbye-and-good-riddance-to-the-architect-of-canadian-content-media-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye and good riddance to the architect of “Canadian Content” media rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marni Soupcoff<\/a> on the lasting legacy of former CRTC head Pierre Juneau, the mandatory “CanCon” ratio for TV and radio:<\/p>\n

\n

Former CBC and CRTC president Pierre Juneau died last week at the age of 89, and the requisite obituaries followed. Almost all of them congratulated Mr. Juneau on his most well-known achievement: having mandated minimum standards for Canadian content on radio and television. It is an unfortunate legacy.<\/p>\n

The troubles with CanCon requirements are both moral and practical: It is not simply wrong to try to forcibly engineer a population\u2019s taste in music in television. It is also impossible. People like what they like, and if what they like is Canadian, they will watch and listen to it even absent rules dictating that they must. If what they like isn\u2019t Canadian, rules saturating the airwaves with all the Loverboy ditties in the world won\u2019t make them tune in.<\/p>\n

So even if you aren\u2019t bothered by CanCon rules\u2019 violation of freedom of expression, you should at least ask yourself how effective the regulations can possibly be \u2014 especially today. More and more people are selecting their music and television shows on their own, now, picking an episode from iTunes here, a free song download from a band\u2019s webpage there. The idea that the nation\u2019s culture can be shaped by mandating the nationality of prime-time content on TV networks and radio stations is as antiquated as it was flawed to start with. And we\u2019re wasting money and time by continuing to force media outlets to comply.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And yes, my Cancon<\/a> blog category is a backhand at the longstanding regulation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marni Soupcoff on the lasting legacy of former CRTC head Pierre Juneau, the mandatory “CanCon” ratio for TV and radio: Former CBC and CRTC president Pierre Juneau died last week at the age of 89, and the requisite obituaries followed. Almost all of them congratulated Mr. Juneau on his most well-known achievement: having mandated minimum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,28],"tags":[416,676,200,661,101],"class_list":["post-13755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-media","tag-cbc","tag-crtc","tag-music","tag-regulation","tag-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-3zR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13756,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13755\/revisions\/13756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}