Bryan Adams is the Canadian we need

"Bryan Adams calls CanCon regulations an 'archaic system' that's 'really stupid'"

CanCon made sense in an era of analog media, radio and tv stations, and monopolistic Canadian media companies looking to maximize their profits by carrying popular (American) content.

However these companies also skirted CanCon in a lot of ways by disproportionately pushing Canadian acts that made it big in the US first, so as to satisfy CanCon rules to focus on the more profitable American artists. Canadian content seemed to succeed despite, rather than due to, CanCon. (For TV it was the production of extremely cheap “local” programming such as local news or “community” programming to satisfy CanCon requirements).

CanCon requirements are roughly around 35% for radio and 50% for TV to carry “Canadian” content.

Here’s a question: Why are CanCon requirements so low? Why not…100%?

Even if CanCon requirements were increased, would it matter in this day and age of global digital distribution? Cat videos on Tik Tok get way more views than original programming ever did. Marketing seems to be the big cost now.

Lots more to this issue. But overall it comes down to: if now American programming is not only profitable but also easily accessible beyond the licenses of Canadian media companies, why aren’t Canadian media companies changing their tack and incentivized to produce and/or carry Canadian content that would be competitive? So we can actually export our own cultural products? Look at the success of South Korea’s music exports for example.

Thoughts?