The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum » Is This The Worst Week Of The Year For Radio?

Lorne · December 28, 2020 2:05 am

I was also trying to think of something else he could have gone with, and I think that Anne Murray would have made more sense. Her first Christmas album didn't come out until 1981, but she would have fit in better as an artist from the oldies era. Percy Faith would have been even better, except that I have read in the past (possibly on this forum) that most of his records don't qualify as Cancon. I think he may have had to give up his citizenship here to become an American citizen, and that he did so before he made most of his records.

paterson1 · December 28, 2020 11:54 am

Percy Faith would be a good question. My thinking would be that his Christmas material from 1954 would be considered cancon. Not so sure the CRTC would split hairs about his material since only one part of the song was required then. And whether Percy became an American may not be important since he could have still been a dual citizen or the fact that he was born and began his career here he could still be considered Canadian. I may be wrong but this would be a somewhat rare case and I have my doubts anyone is going to be that much of a stickler on it for one Christmas song.

Over the years I have read and heard some weird and wonderful fables said about cancon of which were not true.

On another forum one person posted that any recording that was pressed or lacquered in Canada qualified as cancon back in the 50's to early 70's. Not true. CKLW used to speed up Canadian music or heavily edit and shorten Canadian material. Not true. Cancon killed CKLW. Not true. CKLW paid artists to record in Canada so material could be considered cancon. Not true. And finally, the CRTC will pull and has pulled many licenses from stations that don't play enough cancon. Not true.

The only one that was true would be that some Canadian radio stations in the early days of cancon tried to abused the regulation by cramming their Canadian songs in off hours. In more popular time slots they would play little or no cancon. This attempt to manipulate the regulation was stopped fairly early in the game. Radio stations do play their cancon more or less even throughout the day. Most radio websites have the "recently played" tab that anyone can look at, so it's easy to see what was played and when.

Lorne · December 28, 2020 1:16 pm

paterson1 wrote:
Percy Faith would be a good question. My thinking would be that his Christmas material from 1954 would be considered cancon. Not so sure the CRTC would split hairs about his material since only one part of the song was required then. And whether Percy became an American may not be important since he could have still been a dual citizen or the fact that he was born and began his career here he could still be considered Canadian. I may be wrong but this would be a somewhat rare case and I have my doubts anyone is going to be that much of a stickler on it for one Christmas song.

I did a search and found the following at https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/every-rpm-canadian-content-1-single-discussion-thread-1964-2000.987585/page-5:
"I was just reading an RPM article from 1976 written in response to RPM's eulogy to Percy Faith where they were reporting that the CRTC had told them on no uncertain terms that Percy Faith was not CanCon, since Faith had to give up his Canadian citizenship in order to become an American citizen."

And I'll add something with regards to the rumours you mentioned. Back in the early 1970s, I used to actually make a point of listening to CHUM from 6 to 9 am on Saturdays and Sundays when they would play three hours of Cancon. They would play songs that I liked that weren't doing well enough to chart, and also some older material that I liked but hadn't heard that much before (such as Jack Scott) because I was born in 1960. I'm sure they didn't edit any records at first to make them shorter, but eventually I definitely heard numerous examples of them doing so. Someone I know, who was also a CHUM listener, posted about this a while back at https://oldies.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?pid=2445#p2445. I don't know how many other stations did this, but it is my understanding that the CRTC banned this practice in the same way that they started requiring stations to play Cancon throughout the day.

paterson1 · December 28, 2020 2:49 pm

Lorne wrote:
paterson1 wrote:
Percy Faith would be a good question. My thinking would be that his Christmas material from 1954 would be considered cancon. Not so sure the CRTC would split hairs about his material since only one part of the song was required then. And whether Percy became an American may not be important since he could have still been a dual citizen or the fact that he was born and began his career here he could still be considered Canadian. I may be wrong but this would be a somewhat rare case and I have my doubts anyone is going to be that much of a stickler on it for one Christmas song.
I did a search and found the following at https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/every-rpm-canadian-content-1-single-discussion-thread-1964-2000.987585/page-5:
"I was just reading an RPM article from 1976 written in response to RPM's eulogy to Percy Faith where they were reporting that the CRTC had told them on no uncertain terms that Percy Faith was not CanCon, since Faith had to give up his Canadian citizenship in order to become an American citizen."

And I'll add something with regards to the rumours you mentioned. Back in the early 1970s, I used to actually make a point of listening to CHUM from 6 to 9 am on Saturdays and Sundays when they would play three hours of Cancon. They would play songs that I liked that weren't doing well enough to chart, and also some older material that I liked but hadn't heard that much before (such as Jack Scott) because I was born in 1960. I'm sure they didn't edit any records at first to make them shorter, but eventually I definitely heard numerous examples of them doing so. Someone I know, who was also a CHUM listener, posted about this a while back at https://oldies.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?pid=2445#p2445. I don't know how many other stations did this, but it is my understanding that the CRTC banned this practice in the same way that they started requiring stations to play Cancon throughout the day.

Well this is interesting. You have given me a lot of good reading material to sift through Lorne. But I will say that just because someone (including me) posts a comment on a website does not make it so unless there is proof or it is a fact. One of the posts said that since Lorne Green wasn't on a Canadian label his material wouldn't be cancon which is not true. What label the artist appeared on didn't matter.

Also on my brief scan of comments there seems to be confusion of the MAPL logo on songs. Labels or possibly the artist may or may not have decided to put this on the record. Songs were not denied a MAPL logo. Lots of cancon songs never had this on the label and it had nothing to do if a song qualified or not. The MAPL logo was very much optional and most companies decided to put it on to attract radio airplay but by no means did all cancon songs have the little MAPL logo or the various configurations of it.

CHUM playing three hours of cancon Saturday and Sunday mornings would be possible if they were playing some specialized programming later in the day with little or no cancon. In the early 70's they did often play much of their produced feature programming ( Story of the Beatles, Elvis, Evolution of Rock, Canadian Graffiti) on Saturday and Sunday, later in the day or evenings, and would bulk up cancon earlier. So to me that is fair game. I was really referring to stations doing this all the time and through the week which some did do. But it was usually 10-12midnight, and 6-6:30am. BOOM often still bulks up their cancon a bit during these time slots.

Speeding up and cutting songs, I don't buy it. Never heard it ever on any CKLW airchecks from the early 70's or when listening to LW or CHUM growing up, (Devil You 70 seconds long??) all rumours as far as I am concerned. Maybe some stations tried this juvenile prank, but it was no means rampant in the industry. And if it did happen on stations like LW or CHUM it was very short lived.

paterson1 · December 28, 2020 3:58 pm

Sorry I forgot about Percy Faith. That is odd the comment in RPM and CRTC about him not being cancon. Every station I worked at always considered A Theme From a Summer Place as cancon and logged as such. Never heard otherwise from anyone. Also Gale Garnett was the same with We'll Sing in the Sunshine. Both of these songs came out long before the regs or even the CRTC.

Going back to some of the comments from the interesting forum links you sent. There is confusion about artists being Canadian and RPM magazine's role in all of this. RPM seemed to be of the opinion that someone becoming an American citizen no longer made them Canadian and therefore their songs weren't Canadian. There was no cancon back in the 50's or 60's and what did or didn't make a song Canadian seems to be very subjective, and this shows up with RPM and their charts pre 1970.

When the regulation for cancon came into being the lines became somewhat clearer what in fact qualified as cancon and what didn't. An artist did not need to be a Canadian citizen to have a song that qualified as Canadian content, but initially needed to fulfill one and then later two parts of the criteria.

The MAPL logo was designed by RPM based on the new criteria from the CRTC but logo usage on recordings was not mandatory for songs that qualified as cancon. It was a help for radio programmers however.

Lorne · December 28, 2020 6:12 pm

paterson1 wrote:
Well this is interesting. You have given me a lot of good reading material to sift through Lorne. But I will say that just because someone (including me) posts a comment on a website does not make it so unless there is proof or it is a fact. One of the posts said that since Lorne Green wasn't on a Canadian label his material wouldn't be cancon which is not true. What label the artist appeared on didn't matter.

Also on my brief scan of comments there seems to be confusion of the MAPL logo on songs. Labels or possibly the artist may or may not have decided to put this on the record. Songs were not denied a MAPL logo. Lots of cancon songs never had this on the label and it had nothing to do if a song qualified or not. The MAPL logo was very much optional and most companies decided to put it on to attract radio airplay but by no means did all cancon songs have the little MAPL logo or the various configurations of it.

CHUM playing three hours of cancon Saturday and Sunday mornings would be possible if they were playing some specialized programming later in the day with little or no cancon. In the early 70's they did often play much of their produced feature programming ( Story of the Beatles, Elvis, Evolution of Rock, Canadian Graffiti) on Saturday and Sunday, later in the day or evenings, and would bulk up cancon earlier. So to me that is fair game. I was really referring to stations doing this all the time and through the week which some did do. But it was usually 10-12midnight, and 6-6:30am. BOOM often still bulks up their cancon a bit during these time slots.

Speeding up and cutting songs, I don't buy it. Never heard it ever on any CKLW airchecks from the early 70's or when listening to LW or CHUM growing up, (Devil You 70 seconds long??) all rumours as far as I am concerned. Maybe some stations tried this juvenile prank, but it was no means rampant in the industry. And if it did happen on stations like LW or CHUM it was very short lived.

I just cited those other forums as backup for info I knew to be true. With regards to CHUM, I heard those three hour Cancon blocks every Saturday and Sunday for quite some time ... it wasn't just when they had special programming on the weekend. And I heard them very significantly shorten Canadian records during those blocks for quite a while as well, although as I said they didn't originally do it -- and I think the CRTC may have put a stop to this before they started requiring Canadian content to be more evenly distributed during a normal programming day.
With regards to Faith, the person who posted about the RPM article provided enough info that I was actually able to find it ... it's on page 2 at https://worldradiohistory.com/CANADA/RPM/70s/1976/RPM-1976-03-13.pdf.

AspectRatio · December 28, 2020 7:50 pm

Marsden wrote:
For the record - George Noory is always live on Christmas Eve.
...
I compliment George for this choice.

I remember flipping through the stations a couple years ago and landing on George for a few minutes. He was saying he specifically makes an effort to be live on many of the holidays when most aren't, as many people are alone and can't be with family (or don't have family) - and he wants the radio to be a source of company and comfort and have the ability to take live calls rather than a "best of"/reroll package which clearly sounds canned. I was impressed with this stance too, but it's too bad more local radio programming isn't this way. But, you also have to factor in the economics of the number of markets that George is in and total listenership vs. whether it makes sense for some stations in a local market, particularly a smaller one.

paterson1 · December 28, 2020 7:54 pm

Thanks for correcting me Lorne. Didn't know all this time that Percy Faith A Summer Place wasn't cancon. As I mentioned previously, every station that I worked at had this as cancon, even though it was very rarely played.

I can't say I remember or ever heard CHUM playing three hours of cancon on Saturday and Sunday mornings and significantly shorting some songs. I actually only heard a rumour about CKLW doing this to any extent and that it didn't last very long since the CRTC came down on them,

It sounds like you are saying that CHUM did this for quite some time. It makes sense when they had special programming later in the day on the weekend, which they often did, but not as regular weekend morning programming. And editing songs or speeding them up absolutely 100% wrong.

Odd that they weren't hauled in on the carpet for this, especially when other competing stations in the market weren't doing this. Find it hard to believe that other competitors wouldn't complain to the commission. And purposely shortening and editing songs on a continuing basis could have opened CHUM up for a lawsuit from record companies, music unions or artists. Finally weekend mornings with full news and sports on AM radio in the early 70's, especially Saturday 7 to 9am, or Sunday 8 to 9am was not exactly a dead part of the day, so these might not be the best hours to stack up or bury cancon if that was the intent.

Last edited by paterson1 (December 28, 2020 7:55 pm)

kevjo · December 28, 2020 10:26 pm

paterson1 wrote:
Thanks for correcting me Lorne. Didn't know all this time that Percy Faith A Summer Place wasn't cancon. As I mentioned previously, every station that I worked at had this as cancon, even though it was very rarely played.

I can't say I remember or ever heard CHUM playing three hours of cancon on Saturday and Sunday mornings and significantly shorting some songs. I actually only heard a rumour about CKLW doing this to any extent and that it didn't last very long since the CRTC came down on them,

It sounds like you are saying that CHUM did this for quite some time. It makes sense when they had special programming later in the day on the weekend, which they often did, but not as regular weekend morning programming. And editing songs or speeding them up absolutely 100% wrong.

Odd that they weren't hauled in on the carpet for this, especially when other competing stations in the market weren't doing this. Find it hard to believe that other competitors wouldn't complain to the commission. And purposely shortening and editing songs on a continuing basis could have opened CHUM up for a lawsuit from record companies, music unions or artists. Finally weekend mornings with full news and sports on AM radio in the early 70's, especially Saturday 7 to 9am, or Sunday 8 to 9am was not exactly a dead part of the day, so these might not be the best hours to stack up or bury cancon if that was the intent.

Yes, it's true. I don't know exactly how many years they did it but it was a good chunk of the 70's and into the early 80's. As for a slap on the wrist, it was partly due to this practice that the CRTC introduced non-stacking rules for Can-Con and also stipulated that if a can-con song was not played in its entirety it is disqualified from the count. One can't lay the blame solely at CHUM's feet, however. Almost since the introduction of Can-Con, a number of stations came up with creative ways to manipulate the rules to their advantage. Nowadays it's hardly necessary as in most major genres, there is plenty of quality Canadian music available and our music industry has developed a star system of sorts. You have to give at least some of the credit for that to the rule.

RadioActive · December 29, 2020 10:27 am

I had to laugh listening to substitute host Greg Brady on GNR640 Tuesday morning. He was rightly criticizing the government for letting vaccinations in Ontario cease during Christmas and Boxing Day, along with the province not releasing COVID numbers on that day. And he noted that health care is a 24-hour a day service, before noting something that went like this. "Some things have to continue regardless of the holiday. Did we not give the current temperature on our station just because it was December 25th?"

Well, actually, neither 640 nor 1010 did any such thing, going on autopilot on the holiday and featuring no local news, weather or content on Christmas Day. Another reason why I so dislike this time of year on the air. Glad it's almost over.

December 31, 2020 5:21 pm

Charlie wrote:
What were we talking about again? Oh, yeah, this is the worst week of the year for radio.

Even worse for Rod Phillips, but this short-lived drama made for a GREAT day for talk radio.

Last edited by geo (December 31, 2020 5:56 pm)

RadioActive · December 31, 2020 6:07 pm

Before he resigned, I was disappointed none of the tabloid papers (i.e. the Toronto Sun) used the headline "Lightning Rod!" Too late now.

January 1, 2021 8:17 am

RadioActive wrote:
Before he resigned, I was disappointed none of the tabloid papers (i.e. the Toronto Sun) used the headline "Lightning Rod!" Too late now.

The Sun has come up with a pretty clever one . . . "PAYS PRICE FOR PANDEMIC IN PARADISE"

January 1, 2021 11:09 am

Charlie wrote:
grilled.cheese wrote:
George Noory was live last night.
So?

Read the thread, smartass.

mic'em · January 1, 2021 10:47 pm

Knowing there would be little of interest on the broadcast spectrum today, I started my shift this morning at 7 am with 89.1 Max FM Orillia, then heading into the GTA, and losing the signal, I switched to Indie 88.1 and listened to the top 88 of 2020 countdown from song 68 thru 39 until again, heading northbound, I lost that signal, and returned to 89.1. To my surprise, JZ, the DJ on air played " Hey Darlin " by Break the Trend. The lead guitar of that band that just happens to my one and only son. Great way to start the new year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5hQIWRReZI

g121 · January 1, 2021 11:40 pm

mic'em wrote:
Knowing there would be little of interest on the broadcast spectrum today, I started my shift this morning at 7 am with 89.1 Max FM Orillia, then heading into the GTA, and losing the signal, I switched to Indie 88.1 and listened to the top 88 of 2020 countdown from song 68 thru 39 until again, heading northbound, I lost that signal, and returned to 89.1. To my surprise, JZ, the DJ on air played " Hey Darlin " by Break the Trend. The lead guitar of that band that just happens to my one and only son. Great way to start the new year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5hQIWRReZI

very nice mic'em .. i like : )) ..
https://www.facebook.com/BreakTheTrend/videos/10156450046417704/

*edit* you'll be happy to know i've now listened to "Break the Trend" longer than i've ever listened to Drake! ..

Last edited by g121 (January 1, 2021 11:49 pm)

January 2, 2021 7:38 am

mic'em wrote:
. . . and returned to 89.1. To my surprise, JZ, the DJ on air played " Hey Darlin " by Break the Trend. The lead guitar of that band that just happens to my one and only son.

Great way to start the new year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5hQIWRReZI

If Rock 95.7 and FM 104.1 the Dock know what's good for them, they should realize that folks up here support our own, and add it to their play lists (currently over-weighted by the Trews). Congratulations to you and yours, Mike. You obviously raised the lad right

geo

mic'em · January 2, 2021 2:56 pm

Thanks g121 and geo. As with pretty much all bands these days, the boys have had to go into hiatus. They are however, practising and writing up a storm with the hopes of a new record when C19 is defeated and music venues can re-open. All their previous releases can be heard on Spotify and the other streaming services for free. Youtube has a great selection of thier videos and music.