RadioActive wrote:

This isn't CanCon related, but it's about programming music on radio stations. You may or may not agree with his conclusions. 

"You’ve heard this before: It’s not what you play; it’s what you don’t play that makes you successful."

"Don’t get caught up in picking the hits. That appeals to your ego. That’s really worth nothing in our business. Be smart and look to eliminate the bad songs all the time. Do that, you are guaranteed to go somewhere great."

Music Philosophy That Will Crush Your Competition 

Thanks for this, it's a great article and it relates to what I've been saying about music testing.  In the article he says the following: "Seek to eliminate the songs that you can prove are not hits early and often."  This is what using music testing allows the programming people to do.  But, it goes one step further, because on both sides of the equation there can be errors, in that there are some songs that weren't big hits, but test really well.  Also, there are songs that were big hits that never test well.  Anyhow, to bring this all back to the larger point of this discussion, radio stations test music with a group of people who are in their target demo.  Across the country, in every format and over a long period of time a lot of CanCon simply doesn't make the grade.  The reason for this is not because CanCon is bad, it's because 35% is far too much so programmers are often forced to play music, not because it's good but because it qualifies.  As a result, I stick by my original statement that CanCon should be 0%.
 

Last edited by UnSub (April 5, 2021 6:25 pm)

And while WKBW-AM never really came in well in Toronto, their line-up was equally legendary over the years - Danny Neaverth, Jackson Armstrong, Sandy Beach, Don Berns, George Hamberger, Jeff Kaye and of course, the amazing Joey Reynolds. Now, that's a talented - and intimidating - group of announcers. Yet WGR held its own against them. Not to mention some equally long-lasting talent at WBEN-AM. Pretty amazing for a market like that.  

Not sure I can name anyone on the air doing music there now.  

Paul Jeffries wrote:

I've also found it interesting that it's not only songs that have charted below a certain threshold that don't get airplay on many classic hits/classic rock stations, but also songs that have topped the charts, even ones by established artists. For example, "Jacob's Ladder" by Huey Lewis and The News and "Shakedown" by Bob Seger were both #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (the latter being Seger's only #1 to date), but the likelihood of hearing them on any terrestrial radio station is next to nil.

I can understand that a #1 song by a one-hit wonder might not fare well after a certain number of years, but how does a #1 song by an established and respected artist not make the grade? That's never made a lot of sense to me.

PJ

It's not a threshold of chart positions, it's a threshold of music test scores, neither of those songs test very well, so they don't get played.  With Bob Seger, "Old Time Rock and Roll" wasn't as big a hit as "Shakedown" but tests way better, which isn't much of a surprise.  There are a couple of Huey Lewis songs that test ok, but not great, all the rest don't score well at all.
 

Last edited by UnSub (April 6, 2021 3:42 am)

mace wrote:

The only Huey Lewis songs I hear on a semi-regular basis are Hip To Be Square [#3], Heart Of Rock & Roll [#6], and Stuck With You [#1-3 wks]  I rarely hear his other nine top ten hits.

Other nine top ten hits?    This forum relies on Sam Sniderman's CHUM charts, on which H. Lewis charted a total of six (6) times which didn't include Hip To Be Square or Stuck With You.   Of course if H. Lewis was Canadian, the list would be considerably longer (the underlying point of this debate) 
 

Last edited by geo (April 6, 2021 8:58 am)

I get angry reading the statements that if we didn't have any rules on cancon that somehow everyone would run 0% and the end of Canada would happen.

Facts are the audience will drive what cancon should be running when it's not forced.   No station will run 0% because that would not justify the needs/wants of their audience.   Some formats can run and have a demand for a lot of cancon.   Others 5% to 10% would be more justified. 

We are past the point of people getting their music from only the radio.   Spotify for example does not tell me I have to listen to 35% cancon.   These rules are extremely outdated and do not serve the audience or commercial stations that are now trying to play ball in the digital world.


One thing that should be, is the correct use of the CBC.   They in my view should be 100% Canadian to be a place for Canadian music.    This would provide promotion, and give people a choice.   Artists that are not ready to be up against the worlds biggest acts would find a great home here.

New Zealand has done this a while ago and they found stations there actually still play New Zealand artists, the music quality became better because they would have to work harder to compete with world acts.   At no point did they lose who they are as a country because they did this.   They just grew up and became willing to compete.   The music Canada has is good... why can't it do the same and also compete?
 

Last edited by radiokid (April 6, 2021 10:11 am)

radiokid wrote:

I get angry reading the statements that if we didn't have any rules on cancon that somehow everyone would run 0% and the end of Canada would happen.

Facts are the audience will drive what cancon should be running when it's not forced.   No station will run 0% because that would not justify the needs/wants of their audience.   Some formats can run and have a demand for a lot of cancon.   Others 5% to 10% would be more justified. 

We are past the point of people getting their music from only the radio.   Spotify for example does not tell me I have to listen to 35% cancon.   These rules are extremely outdated and do not serve the audience or commercial stations that are now trying to play ball in the digital world.


One thing that should be, is the correct use of the CBC.   They in my view should be 100% Canadian to be a place for Canadian music.    This would provide promotion, and give people a choice.   Artists that are not ready to be up against the worlds biggest acts would find a great home here.

New Zealand has done this a while ago and they found stations there actually still play New Zealand artists, the music quality became better because they would have to work harder to compete with world acts.   At no point did they lose who they are as a country because they did this.   They just grew up and became willing to compete.   The music Canada has is good... why can't it do the same and also compete?

Despite my legendary battles with paterson1 over CanCon, I pretty much agree with radiokid. My main objection to the CanCon rules had nothing to do with whether the music was of high enough quality. Some was, some wasn't in those early days.

I didn't like (and I still don't) the government - any government - dictating what must be aired on a broadcast system that's supposed to be free from such interference. 

However, I will also freely admit that, despite my reservations, the government's plan worked. We now have a thriving Canadian music industry, that has not only produced many national stars, but a growing number played around the globe. So yes, it worked. 

Which may be why it's exactly the right time to lower, relax or even abolish the rules. The Canuck music industry is doing well overall. Many of the artists are admired and sell well in multiple nations. So the object of the game for radio stations, in my mind, is not is it Canadian but is it a good record and is it popular with the public? If the answers to the latter questions are yes, then that's all it should take to get it on air. 

Otherwise, it could be argued that Canadian product is considered so inferior by the regulators, that we actually need to prop it up to help it, lest it be overwhelmed by other nations. I just don't think that's the case anymore. Canadian artists can - and do - now stand on their own merits. They should be judged that way, just like any other artist from any other country. With no extra boosts required. 

No government will ever let this happen of course. But at least a reduction might help prove the point.    

Well, the world or Canada will not come to an end if there was no cancon regulations on radio tomorrow.  I don't think anyone has ever said that. Life as we know it will continue.

Cancon reduced to 20-25% is fine by me, again the world and the country as we know it will go on. But if it stays at 35%, also not the end of the world.  Radio's real issues are not cancon.   This has been used as an easy excuse, but not the real problem.  Sadly radio seems to be going the wrong way in some ways with less local programming, less personality, less quality content and giving listeners fewer reasons to tune in to a local station. 

.My issue is that the CAB seems to be pushing what is done in American radio, with opening up even more consolidation and I guess wanting to go the rebroadcaster route for AM which is common in the US.  To me this is a mistake.  Does Bell, Rogers, Corus and a few others really need to own potentially an even larger number of stations or frequencies?
 
Right now Bell seems to be content just sitting on some AM stations and not doing much with them.  So are we saying that adding some 10 watt FM frequencies that travel 15-20 city blocks will make all things right for these now AM stations to survive?    Do the AM stations even need to be around if Bell has 3 low power FM frequencies for CFRB?  Does this actually improve ratings for stations and increase revenue in the US?  Or is it just confusing and prolonging the slow death of some AM operations?

For cancon what always is kind of funny are the lame excuses from broadcasters that never change.  For years we have heard that cancon hurts ratings and the bottom line.  And the audience really doesn't like it.  I think it is more that broadcasters don't like being told what to do, and they feel that all of this is beneath them.  Audiences don't really seem to care, and the proof would be the ratings. 
 
Cancon has been around for 50 years, so after five decades you would think the carnage and damage from this government imposed regulation would have been extensive and we could point to all of the stations and companies that couldn't survive or compete with this supposed needless burden.  Up until COVID radio was doing better than many other media like television and newspapers/magazines.  Sort of strange that some late bloomers like Stingray and to a certain extent Bell got into radio in a big way late in the game.

Isn't CBC radio already close to being 100% cancon?  And I am talking about CBC 2 here.  CBC 1 doesn't play that much music and often very obscure and boring cancon at least on morning shows.  Just like good old Wally Crouter on CFRB who also played obscure and boring cancon in the mornings, and it didn't seem to matter since RB was always number one in the morning anyway. 



 

CRTC rules that 20% of illegal torrents must be CanConhttps://www.thebeaverton.com/2017/11/crtc-rules-20-illegal-torrents-must-cancon

Prod Guy wrote:

    Three of the top 10 on the Hot 100 are Canadian artists 

That's fabulous news, Prod Guy.   

Do you credit this to diligent enforcement by Ottawa's CanCon police, or to those 3 artists having recorded what the market is looking for?



 

paterson1 wrote:

UnSub wrote:

Paul Jeffries wrote:

I've also found it interesting that it's not only songs that have charted below a certain threshold that don't get airplay on many classic hits/classic rock stations, but also songs that have topped the charts, even ones by established artists. For example, "Jacob's Ladder" by Huey Lewis and The News and "Shakedown" by Bob Seger were both #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (the latter being Seger's only #1 to date), but the likelihood of hearing them on any terrestrial radio station is next to nil.

I can understand that a #1 song by a one-hit wonder might not fare well after a certain number of years, but how does a #1 song by an established and respected artist not make the grade? That's never made a lot of sense to me.

PJ

It's not a threshold of chart positions, it's a threshold of music test scores, neither of those songs test very well, so they don't get played.  With Bob Seger, "Old Time Rock and Roll" wasn't as big a hit as "Shakedown" but tests way better, which isn't much of a surprise.  There are a couple of Huey Lewis songs that test ok, but not great, all the rest don't score well at all.
 

But that is also a flaw of the testing system.  And this is why on gold oriented stations we will hear songs like Girls Just Want to Have Fun, The Way You Make Me Feel, Jessie's Girl, Hungry Eyes and Open Arms all the time.  It's even worse if you flip around the dial because you will hear the same limited gold.

Still hard to understand why a song that was number one or even top 10 may not be played because it didn't test well years later.   I would think these songs still warrant some airplay, only to give the selections we hear all the time a much needed rest.  There is little WOW factor on OTA gold radio.  I guess it really comes down to playing it safe and not wanting to offend.  Yes you could argue that you are programming what the public wants to hear, but it is obvious that there are issues and gaps with this method as well.    

Sure, I suppose one can find fault with any survey methodology.  With music testing it's merely how it's done within the industry and that has been the case over many years.  The approach has been tweaked and improved over time.  When this data is used to decide what gets played and what doesn't it typically shows up in the ratings provided that your station isn't making other programming mistakes.  The reason you hear the songs you mention as often as you do is because they all test well with the exception of "Hungry Eyes" not sure why anyone would play that.  Anyhow, I'm not necessarily waving the flag for music testing, I'm just saying that's how the industry does it and it seems to work better than just guessing what the audience will like.  But this has sort of devolved in to a conversation about music testing, if you remember, this started with me pointing out that for the most part CanCon doesn't test very well, meaning that audience doesn't care much for it.  There is an amount of really good CanCon, but it doesn't add up to 35% of what the audience is interested in.  Also, there are probably a lot of songs that don't get payed on Canadian stations because the airtime is being used to play second rate CanCon in order to make quota.
 

Bristol wrote:

   East CKDO AM/FM and West The Grand 92.9 play a wide swath of Oh WOW songs from a list much bigger that the typical 300 song universe

BRISTOL:  with respect, that's meaningless unless you accompany it with (say) a 1/2 dozen examples of titles & artists
 

This sampling of CKDO's playlist reveals nothing I would even remotely call "Oh Wow": The same burn-outs you can find anywhere else:

http://player.listenlive.co/34691/en/songhistory

Last edited by Dale Patterson (April 8, 2021 10:48 am)

Best of the 70s, 80s & 90s is clearly the culprit.   

The above list from The Grand includes an Elvis tune . . . Hunka Burning Love from 1972, a time when the only thing burning was the man's prostate pain  

Dale Patterson wrote:

  Those aren't "Oh Wow" songs unless you haven't turned on a radio for the past 50 years 

We shouldn't go too hard on these youngsters, Mr. Patterson, as it's nice to see that some still believe in radio
 

Last weekend, R. Ashby played "(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I", the Hank Snow original, and Elvis' cover of it.     It was a glorious occasion