The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) keeps the quota system for French-language vocal music (MVF) at 65% after revising its policy.
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This was announced by the CRTC in its commercial radio policy update.
The council keeps the quotas at 65% for French-language music, including 55% during prime time, and at 35% for Canadian music.
“The radio industry is in a period of upheaval and is competing with digital services being offered to listeners […] Radio is a very important medium for entertaining, informing, discovering new artists and ensuring local voices are heard,” said Ian Scott, CRTC President and CEO.
For its part, the Association of Music Publishing Professionals (APEM) welcomes the CRTC report and describes its decision as “reassuring”.
“Overall, this decision is good news for our music. We needed the CRTC to resist pressure to deregulate the sector and it did just that,” said APEM Director General Jérôme Payette.
The organization aims to use its review to support Canadian artists and enable them to thrive in the competitive world of radio.
To that end, the CRTC expects commercial stations to air at least 5% of songs by emerging Canadian artists.
“A Canadian artist is considered an emerging artist until a period of 48 months has elapsed since the release of their first commercial song,” reads the CRTC website.
In addition, the Commission announced that it would remove the application of the hit policy in the Ottawa-Gatineau and Montreal bilingual markets.
Note that the diversity advancement organization also encourages commercial radio stations to include Aboriginal content, while preparing annual reports on the amount of Aboriginal content broadcast during the year.
In order to offer the industry more flexibility, the Commission is also proposing a new definition of a Canadian music selection. It must meet two of these three conditions: the music or lyrics will be performed primarily by a Canadian; the music was composed primarily (at least 50%) by a Canadian or the lyrics were primarily (at least 50%) written by a Canadian.