Canadian Radio vs. American Radio

[e-dawg]

Is Canadian radio more strict than American radio? Think about it. In the United States, the FCC controls and regulate the airwaves. In Canada, not just only the CTRC controls the airwaves, but Industry of Canada controls the frequency, CBSC controls the content of the broadcast. In the United States you cannot say the word "****, SHIT, ****, ************, ASSHOLE, PISS, **********, and TITS". Also, you cannot show breast, penis, vagina, butt, or even showing the crack of the butt or the breast. However in Canada you can say these words and show nudity, but you cannot talk about defamination or bad mouth other people. Show violence such as Chair throwing on WWE, and talking about controversial subject about race, religion, cree, or orientation. Also, CTRC regulates music format, and music playlist such as 35-40% of Canadian Content, at least 60% french music on a French license station, also must have different ethnic voices for multicultral radio station.

What do you think? Is Canadian more regulate than the US in terms of license?

 

[azumanga]

In Canada, you can say some words on radio and television that would otherwise be forbidden from American airwaves -- for instance, rock station CIMX in Windsor / Detroit ("89X") has played songs that include profanity and all -- the songs that, uncensored, would draw the ire of the FCC.

The regulations of the CRTC (that's the correct acronym) on profanity are looser than that of the FCC in the US -- there are still somethings you can't say on Canadian radio and TV that are related to racism or hate.

 

[spunker88]

With language Canada seems to be less strict than the US. I live on the border so I hear both side. I can remember a few years ago when the song "Panic! At The Disco - I Write Sins Not Tragedies" was popular the Canadian stations wouldn't censor out goddamn even though its in there several times, and the US stations would censor it. Ive also heard the f-bomb on Canadian rock stations many times, although it could have been by accident. I heard the word shit many times when watching Just for Laughs Montreal on CBC during the 8PM hour. I don't think the FCC would like a US OTA station doing that during the 8PM hour.

 

[Yeziknoradio]

A good example from 1995

Nine inch Nails - Closer
Lyrics: "I want to F*** You like an animal"
That airs on Toronto's Edge 102, but the American Edge 103.3 in Buffalo NY goes to dead air for the word F***. You can still hear the "F" in full pronunciation, making it very clear what the word is, but there is an obvious dead air pause between the "fff" and the next word "you".

Also,
What are the rules in both Countries about Beer advertising these days? (just wondering...)

 

[spunker88]

I just heard CFRC in Kingston, ON air the song "Cee Lo Green – Forget You" with no censoring. For those of you unfamiliar with the song, here are the lyrics: http://www.hotnewsonglyrics.com/cee-lo-green-forget-you-lyrics.html

Granted this is low power college run station, and Ive witnessed US college stations that accidentally slipped the f word, but I still think a US based station would get in trouble for playing this song uncensored.

 

[jnorth]

I just heard CFRC in Kingston, ON air the song "Cee Lo Green – Forget You" with no censoring. For those of you unfamiliar with the song, here are the lyrics: http://www.hotnewsonglyrics.com/cee-lo-green-forget-you-lyrics.html

Granted this is low power college run station, and Ive witnessed US college stations that accidentally slipped the f word, but I still think a US based station would get in trouble for playing this song uncensored.

What was the local time when it aired? Before 9 PM?

 

[mimo]

College stations can play uncensored music in Canada at any hour of the day. In the United States, they can only do it after 10 pm.

 

[jnorth]

College stations can play uncensored music in Canada at any hour of the day. In the United States, they can only do it after 10 pm.

Are you sure? I volunteer at a college/community station and was told by the station manager that we are only allowed to play uncensored after 9pm. Everything between 6am and 9pm must be clean. There could be some mistake, but I did believe it to be true, since a "child" could tune into that station just as easily as any other. It could also vary on what actually qualifies to be censored.

 

[mjlarochelle]

College stations can play uncensored music in Canada at any hour of the day. In the United States, they can only do it after 10 pm.

Are you sure? I volunteer at a college/community station and was told by the station manager that we are only allowed to play uncensored after 9pm. Everything between 6am and 9pm must be clean. There could be some mistake, but I did believe it to be true, since a "child" could tune into that station just as easily as any other. It could also vary on what actually qualifies to be censored.

CIXX FM 106.9 at Fanshawe College in London plays censored music, even in the middle of the night. I once heard a censored version of Paper Planes by M.I.A. (i.e., with no gunshots) on that station, at 2 AM.

My guess is that it's a voluntary thing on the part of Fanshawe College.

 

[azumanga]

CIXX FM 106.9 at Fanshawe College in London plays censored music, even in the middle of the night.

My guess is that it's a voluntary thing on the part of Fanshawe College.

Maybe they're afraid that some kid in Australia or Britain may overhear it, perhaps? (CIXX, like many stations, is broadcast over the internet.)

 

[jnorth]

CIXX is a little different to me than your "average" college station. They rely heavily on music rotation, so that MIA song could play during the day or at night. Since it would need to be censored during the day, why go through the effort of playing an uncensored version at night? So I agree it is probably their choice to do things this way.

This differs from other college/community stations who have a wide variety of shows and hosts, some of which may choose to air after 9pm due to the fact that their genre of music may contain a lot of obscenities and would rather not censor them.

For that matter it could include any station who does possibly offensive late night programming, such as The Edge in Toronto.

 

[mimo]

College stations can play uncensored music in Canada at any hour of the day. In the United States, they can only do it after 10 pm.

Are you sure? I volunteer at a college/community station and was told by the station manager that we are only allowed to play uncensored after 9pm. Everything between 6am and 9pm must be clean. There could be some mistake, but I did believe it to be true, since a "child" could tune into that station just as easily as any other. It could also vary on what actually qualifies to be censored.

I'm positive. I've worked in campus radio in Canada (CJSW 90.9 in Calgary) and I've also worked in commercial radio in the U.S. I was very much in contact at one point with WVBU 90.5 in Lewisburg PA, the home of Bucknell University. They had what was called the "safe harbour" period and ran an announcement when 10 pm hit that according to FCC regulations, they could play music that may contain offensive language.

I held the Afterno0n shift on CJSW back in the early 90s on Wednesdays. According to our programme director I could play songs with profanity, as long as the song I was playing was not offensive to a recognisable group. That meant women, minorities, homosexuals, etc. If it put them down, we didn't play it. I could play the song "Too Drunk to F**k by the Dead Kennedys uncensored during my show, I could even say the name of the song, or read literature with profanity in it, since it was literature, and therefore art. However there was a fine line back then. While band names, album and song titles and literature/art was fine, saying.."Oh Sh$t I dropped my pen" was not ok. That seems to have been relaxed. The language I hear on our 2 campus stations here by the dj's that has nothing to do with artistic purposes would not have been allowed back in my day. I've heard dj's say that they were "just f**king around" on the air.

As far as commercial station like 89X in Windsor, it's up to the discretion of the station. They can have the profanity on the air in the music, and CBC has in years passed even dropped the F-bomb a few times during certain types of programming. Today I was listening to Montreal's CFMB during their Italian show and I heard this one promo that had a lot of profanity in it. In English. They came from movie clips. And Ottawa/Gatineau's 96.5 was running a promo featuring new music that used the liner "this is the new sh*t" between each song 2 years ago.

 

[spunker88]

I just heard CFRC in Kingston, ON air the song "Cee Lo Green – Forget You" with no censoring. For those of you unfamiliar with the song, here are the lyrics: http://www.hotnewsonglyrics.com/cee-lo-green-forget-you-lyrics.html

Granted this is low power college run station, and Ive witnessed US college stations that accidentally slipped the f word, but I still think a US based station would get in trouble for playing this song uncensored.

What was the local time when it aired? Before 9 PM?

It was probably after 9PM now that I think of it.

 

[jnorth]

Interesting. I can only go by what I was told.

I know the CBSC doesn't allow its members to air certain content from 6am - 9pm, but the college station I am with is not a member, so maybe it's just a choice of theirs.. even though I do recall being told it was a CRTC thing.

Also, this station allows uncensored MUSIC after 9pm, but the DJ's are never allowed to swear, even if it's in a band or song name. Similar to what you said, we also can't play anything at anytime that would be offensive to a particular group. Foul language is much more acceptable, but racial, sexist, etc remarks are not tolerated.