THERE IS ALMOST NO WAY for an independent Canadian artist to get airplay on radio in this country, says Gregg Terrence, president of Indie Pool.
And even for some signed national artists, finding space in the playlists is very difficult. Artist development in Canada, is stalled.
The reason for this is the Canadian content (Cancon) rules for commercial radio in this country no longer work for those artists. While the rules for radio say that of the total music playlist, at least 35% must be Canadian – which is great, says Terrence – most of that space is taken up by established stars and superstars.
Terrence (right) says he doesn’t begrudge Avril Lavigne’s or Shania Twain’s or the Barenaked Ladies’ or The Tragically Hip’s places in the music business. It’s just that their catalogues of hits gobbles up that 35% so fast that the artists his company represents have no time left over for their tracks to get some spins.
(Indie Pool is a nine-year-old Ottawa-based company which – as its title suggests – pools the resources of Canadian independent recording artists in order to provide affordable music services. The company says it represents 20,000 Canadian artists, giving it some buying power for lower prices when it comes to manufacturing CDs or getting concert T-shirts.)
Terrence and Indie Pool have come up with a new way of counting Canadian radio airplay in getting to that 35% level where international artists like Lavigne will still have their songs programmed, but will hopefully be able to make room at the same time for The Trews or Arcade Fire. Indie Pool’s goal is increased airplay for less-established acts without moving the 35% figure.
The formula Terrence has published on www.letsfixcancon.ca work like this: When a radio station plays a Canadian “International Artist”, such as Nickelback, Sum 41, or Alanis Morrissette, those songs would count for just 0.75 of a Canadian song played. When a station plays a Canadian selection from the “Established Artist” category, which includes The Hip, Great Big Sea, Loverboy and Jann Arden, among others, they would get full credit for a Canadian song.
However, if a station were to play from the list of “National Artists”, which includes the Trews, Kathleen Edwards, Three Days Grace or Sarah Slean, the credit would move up to 1.25, Finally, if a station played an independent unsigned artist, the credit would be 1.50.
Given that the CRTC’s radio review is coming this fall (for sure this time, we think), Indie Pool’s idea is sure to get some consideration, especially since the CRTC commissioners are on record saying they want to push the level of Cancon on radio up to 40%, much to the chagrin of Canadian radio station owners.
What follows here is an edited transcript of a recent chat between Indie Pool’s Terrence – where he explains how each artist group is defined and that he wants to work together with radio and the music industry – and www.cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O’Brien.
Greg O’Brien: Where did your Cancon ideas come from and how did you get started on it?
Greg Terrence: It started about a year ago now – with the satellite radio hearings. At some point, (Canadian Satellite Radio vice-president programming) Bob Mackowycz approached us and asked us to intervene and support their application to the CRTC. Through our research and based on their playlists and on the grey market issues they had – and the Canadian talent development dollars that are on the table, we agreed to get behind it because we felt that Cancon was so broken that it wasn’t playing any developing artists whatsoever therefore what’s the big whoop in protecting it?
We told that to the CRTC on behalf of our 20,000 Canadian artists and what happened is that through the consultations with our artists on whether we should get behind satellite or not really stirred up a lot of emotion and opinion on Cancon and what came out of that was a thought that maybe there’s an opportunity here with the (CRTC’s) radio review being called in September.
GOB: You mean re-called. It’s been delayed twice I think.
GT: Right. We felt like it’s one thing to say that Cancon is broken. It’s another to say let’s try and fix it. So, since the end of the (satellite radio) hearings in November, we’ve been working very hard on Cancon and consulting with different artists and bringing in different opinions from all kinds of people – and it grew organically.
It started with a whole different kind of concept and once you started trouble-shooting and trying formulas and finding exceptions, we eventually came up with our Cancon Pro formula.
GOB: I had a look at that and it seems like a pretty ingenious way of maintaining the Cancon radio regs as they are, while maybe counting the playlists differently.
GT: That’s right.
GOB: The main question I have is the designation between the developing artists, established artists, national artists and international artists. How do you decide who falls into which category?
GT: Those formulas are being written but I can tell you what the basis is on all of it. It’s not going to be murky at all, in our view. Let’s start from the top – international artists and how they will be defined.
GOB: I’d think they might be the easiest to define.
GT: In some ways they are, because everyone knows who they are, so you know what you’re looking for.
All formulas are based on radio, by the way. Nothing is based on sales or who you’re signed to or where you’re signed or how rich you are or anything like that. It’s all based on the amount of spins that you’ve received on radio. So, if you’re selling gangbuster CDs, but you’re not getting any radio play, then you’re qualifying way lower on the chart. Cancon is a radio-based program so all figures should be based on radio. So, counting spins in the U.S. – and as long as they’ve rubbed off into Canadian spins so if their international success has led to great success in Canada as well… basically you set a spin figure based on international charts and you set a spin figure in Canada which is what we’re doing right now and there you have your international artist designation.
An artist moves back from international to established 15 years after their peak. So at some point, Celine Dion will be an established Canadian artist. She’s not going to be ranked international for all time, because at some time she’s going to become classic.
GOB: Okay, take an artist like Kathleen Edwards. Is she a developing artist? I know her name and I’ve heard her play, but I don’t think I’ve heard her on the radio.
GT: She’s not established. If we keep going down the road to established artist – that’s a 1.0. That’s determined from Canadian spins. Artists here have not reached a plateau internationally, but they have reached the Canadian spin number that we set out.
So, if you reach a certain amount of spins – or a certain amount of audience – there’s two ways to look at it – we prefer audience – but unfortunately the audience tracking numbers don’t go back enough years for us to bring in historical data to determine everyone’s settings. So, we may have to base it on spins even though we prefer basing it on audience.
GOB: Have you set any of the numbers yet?
GT: We have not. We’re working on them and still testing. It has to be relevant and it has to be high enough. We don’t want any arguments about it. If someone is international, they’ve got to be clearly international. We don’t want to cut of anyone at the knees as they’re climbing up.
Same thing with established. If you’re graduating to the next level, there’s got to be a darned good reason for that.
So, established would be Blue Rodeo, The Tragically Hip – they’ve hit a very high number of spins in Canada and can be then considered established.
GOB: Sure. You can’t go out the door and listen to the radio and not hear a few tracks from them
GT: We kind of know who they are and it’s kind of easy because it’s based on (Nielsen) BDS or (airplay ranking) Mediabase numbers – and once you hit those numbers, you graduate. It’s not an opinion. There’s no debate. You hit them and they’re there. No discussion. No committee.
Now, between the bottom two levels, developing and national artists, there’s a very clear dividing line of who’s in there. Basically, everyone who hasn’t hit big spins in Canada, falls under the 1.0 and 0.75, so everyone in national and developing are either 1.25 or 1.5. And, the best way to distinguish those is through the already-recognized FACTOR Distributor List.
So FACTOR (the Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent on Records), which sends out the money for Canadian talent development has this line drawn if an artist is signed or not signed. If an artist is not nationally distributed and can not access the majority of the grant money that is available through FACTOR, then they would be considered a developing artist.
You would be a developing artist. So would I. Every Canadian who’s not on that list would be considered a developing artist.
GOB: Well, no one wants to hear me sing, so no worries there.
GT: It’s just to say that we don’t have to track everybody in that category. That category is all Canadians. And there are only three other lists for us. One list is based on international spins. The next on Canadian spins and the next is ‘you haven’t reached national or international spins, but you are signed, and nationally distributed and can access grants and likely have a label’ and so on, then you are considered a national artist.
GOB: How did you come up with these divisions?
GT: It took a lot of work and a lot of changes and it really covered everyone. It started with two, then it went to three and then it ended up going to four. There’s no reason to go to five, we can’t see that. It seems like we’ve really categorized it properly. Now, it’s just a question of getting the formulas right so nobody’s too upset.
GOB: What has the feedback been from the artists?
GT: A couple of the international artists have been in touch with me and they have their concerns about the 0.75 and the optics of it. So, we may revise that so that the scale starts at 1 and climbs from there so that no one is less than Canadian.
But, other than a few concerns like that, it seems like they are willing to give a little room. (The international artists) know the situation. They know what it was like before and since they are international successes, Canadian spins don’t really make much difference in their lives.
GOB: What has been the reaction of the radio industry.
GT: I have met with the CAB (Canadian Association of Broadcasters) and Standard Broadcasting with (CEO) Gary Slaight, and others and I would say they’re cautious, of course, because there’s so much on the line. But they are talking and they do recognize the problems facing the music industry and that something needs to be done… but they’re far from signing off on it.
They may want to discuss it. They may have their own plans. But we’ve decided to stay completely open-minded when it comes to the final formula. If we can bring our friends in radio on board in an amicable and productive way – so that their businesses remain profitable and that their listeners continue to enjoy what they’re doing and that we can assist the music industry in its development needs, then that’s our primary goal for sure.
GOB: The broadcasters are just plain afraid of the Commission’s talk of bumping the overall radio Cancon from 35% to 40%.
GT: I think what they’re more concerned about is just going to 50, which is being advocated by certain groups. We’re not necessarily one of them. We feel it’s more complex than that. You could crank that number to 80% and it’s still not going to help the music industry develop artists – although it’ll help a few make bigger profits than they would have made but it’s not going to unclog the drain because this drain called the music industry is clogged.
My ranks at Indie Pool are growing by 50-75% a year and no one is moving on. The reason why my ranks are growing is because there’s no artist development going on. There are very few breaking artists moving up that ladder.
We feel that this isn’t about us against them when it comes to radio. It’s not us against them when it comes to the majors either… we want the major labels to benefit from this as well.
CAB and its members have followed the rules and they’ve helped design the rules but certainly I don’t think they should be criticized. They’re not there for altruistic purposes, they’re not supposed to be. They’re also not there to work for the music industry. They’re playing by the rules that they were given.
We feel that a fine-tuning of the rules is much more important than just jacking up Cancon.
And, not defining it and saying what are our goals here. We would just as soon eliminate Cancon altogether, if it’s not going to be a smarter Cancon because it is not contributing to Canadian artist development and if you eliminate it, your wouldn’t change the drain clog at all.
We do not want to take the next steps without radio. We do not want to be stuck in an NHL situation like the players and owners where two sides are coming to the CRTC with completely different points of view and animosity and we’re going to let the judge and jury decide how we run our industries. We want to go to the CRTC – with the music industry and radio industry – to try and work together in coming up with a plan.
