The CRTC has rejected MuchMusic‘s request to air fewer music videos in favour of more “lifestyle” programming, but the station will continue to push for changes that a network executive said are key to staying relevant.
Much had asked the federal regulator for a number of amendments to its licence, including one that would allow the station to reduce the number of videos it plays to 25% of its total content from the current 50%.
But Brad Schwartz, senior vice-president of Toronto’s Much MTV Group, said the rejected changes will soon be re-examined anyway, because parent company CTV has requested a group licence renewal for its cluster of specialty networks, which includes Much.
“It’s certainly not the end of the process,” Schwartz said in a phone interview from New York.
“We got some nice flexibility to put us on par with other specialty channels, and I’m confident that our case is strong on why we need these changes to keep MuchMusic relevant.”
According to CRTC’s ruling, MuchMusic’s move to lessen its obligation to music videos was opposed by a number of groups, including Rogers, which argued that “it would allow MuchMusic to re-orient itself from a music-based service into a lifestyle-type service targeting young adults.”
The amendment was also opposed by a number of organizations representing the music industry–including the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) and the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN)–who argued that MuchMusic would duplicate the programming of MTV Canada, another CTV property.
In its ruling, the CRTC said the proposed amendments to MuchMusic would be “significant enough” to call into question the regulator’s Category A licensing framework, which seeks to maintain genre exclusivity.
The CRTC also rejected Much’s request to air more lifestyle programming, as well as its bid to reduce Canadian content and eliminate French-language videos from its playlist.
Much’s bid to decrease music-related content (from 100% to 75%) was also rejected, as was the network’s request to increase animated content.
Schwartz said that in an age where music videos are available on-demand in an ever-increasing multitude of formats, a television station based solely on music videos isn’t viable.
“It’s tough for us to be in the music-video business when you can get it everywhere,” Schwartz said.
“What the CRTC does in creating the nature of services and genre protections is to allow businesses to be special. And our problem is, music videos no longer make us special. When you look at a service like Vevo–which is owned by the record labels–we don’t even get music video premieres anymore. All music video premieres are on Vevo.”
The CRTC did approve a few of MuchMusic’s amendment requests.
Much will now operate on an 18-hour broadcast day, down from a 24-hour period. That means that Much will be free to broadcast whatever it wants between midnight and 6 a.m., without consideration of its licence–allowing, for instance, additional late-night re-runs of Gossip Girl.
Much will also now be allowed to expand the number of categories from which it can draw programming, though all of that programming will still have to be music-related. As an example, Schwartz pointed out that Much can now air comedies and movies.
