**Ahem**

In respect of my fellow Commentists, I realize this might be a boring topic to you, considering that “Canada” is usually nothing more in your mind than a lower drinking age and where your first boy/girlfriend came from. (I know him/her; they told me about that summer at camp. The long walks; the late nights; the early mornings. Sorry you got Lyme disease.) But, in preparing a lesson for my students, I decided to drop some knowledge on my fellow dick-jokers as well, because

Unlike in class, I can use whatever video clips I want to make my point, because Commentists can handle a blue word or two. Or, at least I won’t get phone calls from your parents.

[For brevity, I’m going to avoid the whole English-French thing. Plus, it angers the blood.]

The lesson involves two acronyms:

• CanCon – or “Canadian Content”;
• SimSub – or “Simultaneous Substitution”

The first one most people in Canada are passingly familiar with; the second they are angrily aware of, on a daily basis.

“CanCon” is the legal requirement on a Canadian TV network to show a minimum amount of Canadian content per day. This is mandated, overseen, and arbitrarily judged by a government body called the Canadian Radio & Telecommunications Corporation (CRTC). In the past, the standards ranged from a low of 25% for a broadcast day (7 AM to 11 PM), to a high of 55% (between 7 AM to 6 PM). So, while most people think of this:

or this:

and, more recently, this:

https://youtu.be/5R8At-Qno_o

Canadian TV is actually a whole bunch of crap like this:

regional stuff like this: (the hairstyles are phenomenal)

and national talk shows like this: (let the awfulness wash over you)

This is because Canadian networks needed to show a certain daily percentage of Canadian-made content in order to make their money off the US programs they import. To broadcast one hour of American Idol requires providing necessary broadcast time to programs of lesser, but Canadian, quality.

The updated 2015 requirements mandate different levels for “broadcast” and “cable” networks:

• Broadcast network requirements: (CTV; Global; City)
  • 0% Canadian content between 7 AM & 6 PM
    • But credits can be attained for showing CanCon during these hours
  • 50% Canadian content between 6 PM & 11 PM
    • News and “infotainment” (i.e. ET Canada) count towards that percentage
    • With a bonus of 150% credit if they broadcast Canadian comedy or drama during those hours
      • (Which is why Rookie Blue exists. You’re welcome.)
• Cable network requirements:
  • 35% Canadian content in a 24-hour day
    • TSN SportsCentre rebroadcasts count

Delightfully, this counts for both:

The national, government-funded broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), as mocked above, must show at least 90% Canadian content throughout their broadcast day, and do not get the “prime time” credit. They must have one hour of “community” or documentary broadcasts each night Monday to Friday, and three hours of educational programming. Their exceptions usually come around shows like Coronation Street, which have an appeal to English Canada’s British heritage. They have to show a Canadian version of Sesame Street called Sesame Park, which has 90% Canadian content, and only 10% Cookie Monster & crew.

The only professional sport the CBC broadcasts is hockey, because duh.

[Ed. note from The Maestro: while the point above about hockey was true for a long time, the CBC is now gradually moving away from the domain of pro sports. Hockey Night In Canada, on-air on Saturdays and select Wednesdays since 1952, is now being simulcast on Sportsnet due to that network’s parent company, Rogers, having acquired the national rights to NHL broadcasts a couple years ago after the CBC having held them for 60+ years prior. This now creates a mess of the broadcast schedule, where the national game of that evening is shown on CBC (available as part of every basic cable package in the country), but games broadcast in only specific regions of the country that same evening are on Sportsnet, Sportsnet One, Omni, and City TV, all of which require upgrades to your cable/satellite package in order to watch. As well, Rogers likely intends on phasing out the involvement of CBC in its plans for broadcasting, though that hasn’t been confirmed yet. All things said and done, while this makes sense from a financial perspective for the CBC to get out of sports broadcasting, as it’s a costly hit to taxpayers across the country, it’s a shame that this is the path that they’ve chosen for now, as the CBC did actually do a stellar job with its coverage of such events as the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and World Cup of Soccer in Brazil, which had select games broadcast live on TV, and all games/events broadcast live on the web and on smartphone/tablet apps with special features like additional camera angles, added commentary, and rewind/replay features. They hold the Olympic rights through 2020, but after that, it’s doubtful that they will choose to bid again on purchasing them.]

The cable CanCon percentage requirement has led to some laughable actual government rulings. The best, and most recent, example of adherence to, and punishment for violating, the CanCon rules comes from Ontario:

For failing to broadcast sufficient levels of Canadian-made pornography — and failing to close-caption said pornography properly — a trio of Toronto-based erotica channels has earned a reprimand from the Canadian Radio-television & Telecommunications Commission. 

Wednesday, the CRTC issued a broadcast notice saying AOV Adult Movie Channel, XXX Action Clips and the gay-oriented Maleflixxx were all failing to reach the required 35% threshold for Canadian content. Based on a 24-hour broadcast schedule, that translates to about 8.5 hours of Canadian erotica a day.

[March 5, 2014: (© National Post)]

There are also rights issues with Canadian providers. Media conglomerates in Canada can both own multiple cable networks and purchase the international rights to a foreign cable network, which has the effect of allowing those conglomerates to shift programming in order to direct customers to their other offerings. Here are five such examples:

1. HBO Canada is offered by Bell, and prevents HBO Go from operating in Canada. Bell puts some HBO shows on their other pay networks to broaden their subscription base. They have created their own subscription service instead.
2. BBC Canada is owned by Shaw, and uses Canadian programs from their other properties, like Holmes on Holmes, to supplement their 8.5 hour requirement. New BBC Graham Norton episodes are shown on a 6-month delay.
3. FX Canada is owned by Shaw, and shows old CBC programs like Murdoch Mysteries & DaVinci’s Inquest overnight to make their CanCon quota.
4. Archer, which is on FX in the US, is not shown on FX Canada but is instead shown on Cartoon Network Canada, which requires a separate cable bundle. Sons of Anarchy, which was on FX in the US, had its first-run shows aired on Super Channel – a pay-TV network – in Canada. FXX was prohibited from running their Simpsons marathon because those Canadian rebroadcast rights are owned by Bell; Shaw owns the first-run broadcast rights.
5. Top Chef, which is on Bravo in the US, is shown on Food Network Canada. Project Runway, which is on Lifetime in the US, is on Bravo in Canada, which requires a separate cable bundle. Lifetime Canada is also apparently a thing that exists.

The same Act also mandates internet providers have the duty to prevent customers from trying to watch US programs from their US-parent website.

Notice how they both block the US product but also pimp their subscription service at the same time. Fun fact: most Canadian ISPs are the same ones that own the broadcast & cable networks. But it’s not a monopoly!

Most Canadian TV networks produce their content as cheaply as possible, seeing CanCon requirements as another broadcast licencing tax. They pay it, because the money they make off US re-broadcasts more than compensates. Also, if a dog is the lead actor, everyone else gets paid less.

This is where SimSub comes in.

Simultaneous Substitution (aka “SimSub”) is the law that allows Canadian broadcast networks to put their feed over the US feed when that program is being broadcast, via cable or satellite, at the same time in the broadcast day. In the Broadcasting Act, SimSub is allowed because it “promotes Canadian content by allowing Canadian networks to advertise their entertainment product during a more popular American offering”, and theoretically increasing the chance of that Canadian content being viewed in the future. In reality, it just allows higher advertising rates, which draw the bulk of their revenue from the simulcast or rebroadcast of US programs. It’s not chump change; SimSub generated $250 million in revenue for Canadian broadcasters in 2014.

SimSub starts at the beginning of a broadcast, so in Canada at the top or bottom of the official hour. It cuts immediately into the broadcast, so you may end up seeing the first ten seconds again, or missing the first minute if – as NBC does with their Chicago ____ programs – the US network ends the first program on the :59 and starts the second show immediately after, because in Canada one network has rights to the earlier show and so runs its signal to the top of the hour.

Where you run into problems is when shows like SNL have non-traditional formats, and run fake ads after the monologue:

https://youtu.be/JTUDwTHSbEE

It has become common for live programs like this to lose portions during the Canadian broadcast, because their algorithm for catching commercial breaks is affected by the live programming decisions. It’s a situation that becomes worse when they have a chance to fix the error, but they instead use that one broadcast feed for the entire country, so BC gets to watch the same error three hours later. The Oscars ranks second to the Super Bowl in CRTC complaints about SimSub.

In sports, it used to be that once the anthem was over:

the SimSub could begin. Today, SimSub broadcasts start at the top of the hour, but they have to manually switch the signal off when the game ends. Also, if the broadcast game is a blowout, and the US network decides to switch to a more competitive game, the SimSub will keep the broadcast on the same crappy game, because that was the game they purchased the rights to.

The Super Bowl broadcast is particularly irksome to Canadian viewers, because the old rules used to let them only SimSub the game. However, in 2005, the rules were amended to allow the Canadian broadcast network to broadcast and SimSub the pregame show, so throughout this year’s (2016) chucklefuckery hosted by Jim Brown, instead of the usual ads by paid sponsors like Southwest, Subway, McDonald’s, State Farm, FedEx, and The Home Depot, we’ll be seeing ads (once again), for local products like the BC Lions.

“The CFL: While You’re Watching the Super Bowl, Consider Us!”

[Ed. note from The Maestro: For some people, it’s not even so much that we don’t get to see the US ads in this case; it’s the fact that ours are just thoroughly uninspiring like 90% of the time. Viewers are justifiably frustrated when they’re striving for some cultural continuity with the rest of the world, and thanks to a paranoid and overzealous regulatory body in the CRTC, are denied in sharing that same experience. Besides this overly condescending and patronizing nature of our national overseer, we’re going to go fucking crazy if we have to see the Canadian Tire guy shilling some bullshit snow shovel add-on yet again instead of Clydesdales and pigs playing football or whatnot. WE WANT HEARTWARMING LIVESTOCK DAMMIT. But all in all, you watch the Super Bowl for the entire experience, whether you’re a football fan or not, and the idea that that experience has to differ just merely based on geographic locations of a viewer is a pretty flimsy argument overall.]

And in case people think they can go online to get their fix:

CBS intends to live-stream all of its commercials online for the first time ever, starting in 2016 at the milestone Super Bowl 50. Star sources confirmed the news that was first reported by Variety. However, the live-stream will not be available in Canada. A Bell Media spokesperson confirmed that the feed featuring the ads will be geo-blocked.

[Toronto Star]

Here is the best example of the overall SimSub problem I could find. This is the rage you feel growing up in Canada and watching the NFL. It’s one of the reasons I have Seahawks tickets, so I can watch the whole game. As an added benefit, please to enjoy old footage of Donovan McNabb as an Eagle, and Jay Cutler as a Bronco!

The problem of consumer complaints is so great, the CRTC has an entire section of their TV programming page devoted to “Seeing Canadian Ads During the Super Bowl”, separate from their explanations of SimSub.

This change will generally apply more to live events than to regularly scheduled programming, so Big Bazinga will still have SimSub done, because it draws more advertising dollars for CTV in that one 30-minute block than their entire daytime roster of shows.

However, a break is on the horizon. SimSub will be amended starting in 2017, in response to the volume of complaints received over the years about lost footage due to inconsistent returns to the live broadcast. Starting with the 2017 Super Bowl, local stations, not national networks, will control SimSub, meaning a local Vancouver station will decide if Vancouver viewers will see Canadian advertising on cable feeds of FOX Seattle during Super Bowl 51.

Hopefully, the game is the London Jaguars versus the San Antonio Raiders. [Ed. note from The Maestro: apparently the hot scoop of today (Jan. 29th) is that it could be the Las Vegas Raiders now. Even better for this display of farcical shitdickery.]

The NFL recently joined an appeal by Bell to the Federal Court of Appeals, seeking to overturn the CRTC decision to end SimSub for the Super Bowl. They argued that the commercials are not an essential part of the game’s viewing experience, because there are regional variations across the US, and that the Super Bowl should be treated no differently than regular season games, stating in their motion to join the appeal:

“The Super Bowl championship game is the culmination of a full season of League football games played over the course of six months,” the NFL said in the motion. “It is not a stand-alone event like a movie, but is more analogous to the ‘season finale’ of a television series.”

^{business.financialpost.com}

There you have it. The Super Bowl is more than an annual extravaganza built around a football game, it serves to bring the season to a close – like The Sopranos, but with Coldplay instead of Journey. it’s also – in Canada – an annual reminder that common borders don’t always mean common access. We get CBS, but we don’t get all CBS has to offer, and we have actual laws that say why. Our dollar might be worth 70 cents US, but our airwaves are 100% safe from this:

https://youtu.be/xr7GP5kcZLM

Thanks to The Maestro for editing this piece for me. Thanks to DFO for letting me ramble.