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CanCon Continued

Here’s the CBC’s report on the latest rulings by the CRTC on Canadian Content.

My very brief attempt at a summary, with the proviso that I haven’t had a chance to look at the full ruling rather than various reports about it: The rules seem to emphasize money over time. Companies spend a certain percentage of money on home-grown programming, but when it airs is another matter, and what channel it airs on is still another matter. There are still requirements in place for airing Canadian shows between 6 pm and midnight on the broadcast networks, but the ruling emphasizes the modern-day “family” of stations – specialty stations and so on – over the primary broadcast network. So the focus is more on content and less on where or when the content is displayed.

The CRTC is arguing that the need to fulfil a spending requirement will lead to better results than the requirement to fill a certain amount of time. While ACTRA was arguing that this will lead to Canadian programming disappearing from prime time on the broadcast networks (more than it already has, that is). We’ll see.

And the usual addendum, which is that I probably shouldn’t use the blanket term “Canadian” programming to talk solely about English-Canadian programming.

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