CRTC Limits Music Montages

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CRTC Limits Music Montages

Postby jon » Thu Nov 24, 2011 10:15 am

The CRTC takes radio stations to task for their inappropriate use of musical montages

OTTAWA-GATINEAU, Nov. 24, 2011 /CNW/ - Today, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced that it is restricting the use of musical montages by two Francophone commercial radio stations. A condition of licence has been imposed on Astral's station CKTF-FM and Cogeco's station CKOI-FM limiting their broadcasting of montages to no more than 10% of total programming per week.

A musical montage is a compilation of excerpts from a number of songs played without interruption. Although it may contain excerpts from several songs, a montage is considered a single piece of music for purposes of calculating the levels of Canadian content and French-language vocal music (FVM). Used properly, montages allow audiences to sample selections that would not otherwise be broadcast, or to discover new artists.

CKTF-FM and CKOI-FM were broadcasting up to 18% of long montages composed almost exclusively of popular English-language and non-Canadian music. Given that CKTF-FM's licence was also up for renewal, the Commission imposed a four-year renewal period on the licensee.

The CRTC also imposed a shorter renewal period of five years on RNC Media's station CFTX-FM because of its failure to comply with the regulations on the required levels of FVM.

In an information bulletin published today, the CRTC consolidated its goals and its expectations with regard to the use of montages and specified what would constitute an inappropriate use of montages. It also announced that it may impose conditions of licence similar to those imposed on CKTF-FM and CKOI-FM to all broadcasters who allot more than 10% of their programming to montages in their broadcast week.

"There is a widespread trend on the part of some French-language broadcasters to use montages inappropriately," commented Tom Pentefountas, the CRTC's Vice Chairman of Broadcasting. "Some licensees appear to be using montages to circumvent the requirements for French-language vocal music. We are finding that for some Francophone commercial stations, the current quotas represent a particular challenge given their target audience and the market they serve."

In view of this situation, the CRTC will gather data on the French-language private radio industry and on the Francophone music industry in order to more fully understand the problem.

The CRTC will hold a symposium in the winter of 2012 to discuss with key stakeholders the results of this data gathering, the evolution of the market for French-language music, and the role of radio in the broadcast and promotion of FVM. The CRTC will reconsider its regulatory requirements with respect to FVM and montages when it undertakes a more comprehensive review of policies affecting the Francophone commercial radio sector. This review should be initiated in 2012.
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Re: CRTC Limits Music Montages

Postby skyvalleyradio » Thu Nov 24, 2011 10:54 am

oh joy - now the Big Dog wants to clamp down on those of us who do on-air mixes "on the fly". Why doesn't the CRTC just make creativity in radio illegal - that would solve this problem quickly?? :walk:
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Re: CRTC Limits Music Montages

Postby Buckley » Thu Nov 24, 2011 1:34 pm

skyvalleyradio wrote:oh joy - now the Big Dog wants to clamp down on those of us who do on-air mixes "on the fly". Why doesn't the CRTC just make creativity in radio illegal - that would solve this problem quickly?? :walk:


I think they already have :-)

I'm going to assume what they're talking about would be french stations playing, say, 6 top 40 songs in a row, calling it a "montage", and counting it as 1 song. If you did it right, you could play two 5 song montages an hour, then 4 french language songs... and tell the CRTC you played 6 songs, 2 of which were English/non CanCon. This way, you're claiming 66% French/CanCon stats... not sure if that's what these stations were doing, but up until this ruling they could have very easily done that.

I don't think this would effect things like a dance-based station playing mashups or having a DJ in doing mixes (if you're just beat-matching or mixing songs on the fly, if the music department is doing things right they're counting each of those songs as a song anyway, unless you just have a lazy music director who isn't logging things properly).
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Re: CRTC Limits Music Montages

Postby Aaron » Thu Nov 24, 2011 1:45 pm

That's exactly what they're doing.

You can argue until you're blue in the face about FrenchCon/Cancon, etc., but in the meantime the playing field needs to be even, and this was cheating.
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Re: CRTC Limits Music Montages

Postby slowhand » Thu Nov 24, 2011 2:50 pm

Never read the actual regulations but there was and probably still is the "63 second rule". I think it says that anything musical under 63 seconds does not have to be logged.

It was originally invented to stop stations like CKLW from playing a bunch of short Canadian content excerpts and considering it their quota for the hour.
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