rfmcdonald | [LINK] "LessMusic" (Reply)

Canada's MuchMusic station has played a huge role in Canadian popular culture as Canada's indigenous version of MTV, from the mid-1980s on broadcasting music videos by Canadian musicians (and by non-Canadians, too), helping to jumpstart careers and promote Canadian music. Now, as Torontoist's Christopher Bird notes, MuchMusic wants to follow MTV in jettisoning that innovative heritage entirely.

The largest and most obvious change in Much's proposed new licence? The videos. Specifically, Much wants to drop their minimum airing time of music videos from 50% of airtime to 25%. They also want to count "music video programs" for that 25% requirement, which would presumably include shows like Video On Trial, which have music videos in them but are not really a vehicle for airing the videos per se. Given that Much currently airs Video on Trial in between three and six hours almost every day of the week, this is a big deal for them.

Much's argument for changing the licence in this regard is twofold: first, that people can watch music videos through other sources (i.e., Youtube), and second, that there just aren't as many music videos as there used to be. We're going to come back to that second point a bit later on, but let's focus on the first for now.

One of the reasons people generally watch music videos on YouTube? Here's a thought: maybe it's because the vast majority of programming MuchMusic uses to fulfill its music video requirements happens overnight. All of the famous MuchMusic "specialty shows"—shows like The Wedge, RapCity, Loud, and MuchVibe—now air at 3 a.m. on weekday nights, which is of course the perfect time for a discerning young music fan to learn about new bands in their favorite genre. The generic MuchMegaHits now airs at 2 and 7 a.m. daily. UR11, the internet-themed vote-for-your-fave-videos show complete with lolspeak title and lack of respect for the younger generation's intellect, airs at a comparatively accessible 11 p.m.

What's on Much during the daytime? Well, today, you can watch My Date With... (it's Fall Out Boy!), Love Court, Video on Trial, Punk'd, Pimp My Ride, My Own Show, Styl'd, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, When I Was 17, The Vampire Diaries, an airing of the movie Centre Stage, and then The Vampire Diaries again. The only show with actual, uninterrupted videos in it is MuchOnDemand. That's one hour of videos, between 1 p.m. through to midnight.

[. . . M]uchMusic, a channel that was once defined by its Canadian content, a channel which sold its Canadian content in numerous foreign television markets successfully, now thinks that Canadian content is too hard to produce at current levels! Hence, they request a 5% drop in the amount of Canadian content airtime (from 60% down to 55%), and to entirely abolish the requirement that half of their programs from 6 p.m. through midnight be Canadian. On the bright side, this might mean a lot less Video on Trial in prime time (but then again that's about the last entertaining show MuchMusic still bothers to make).

[. . .]

But so long as we're discussing the stimulation of culture, let's talk about MuchMusic's other stated reason for pursuing this licence amendment: the argument that there aren't enough music videos for them to easily fulfill their airing requirements. You know what's interesting? In addition to wanting to cut half of of their video airing requirement, they also want to cut half of the money they're required to contribute to MuchFACT, the fund that assists emerging Canadian talent to produce music videos. Much is quite upfront about their reasoning: since they won't have to air so many videos, they shouldn't have to spend so much money.

Sigh.