Ottawa: Where’s All the Canadian Erotica?
By Joshua Keating
The National Post reports that three Canadian erotica channels have earned a government reprimand for not showing enough home-grown content:
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.
According to a shocking finding by the Post, on the day the article went to print, “in the entire Maleflixxx daily broadcast schedule, the only obviously Canadian title on Thursday’s line-up was ‘Men of Ottawa’ ” (no description available). Yet it was broadcast at 3pm, hardly prime time for Maleflixxx viewership.”
The Canadian content rules, which are similar to those in a number of other countries, are meant to promote the country’s own productions by keeping the airwaves from being overwhelmed by content from other countries—well, let’s be honest, one country in particular.
My screenplay for the pilot of Greetings from Snatchkatchewan just got the big green light. More...
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The CanCon rules, requiring broadcasters to show a certain percentage of Candian-produced programming, have benefited the development of popular shows like The Kids in the Hall and Degrassi (would Drake be famous today without CanCon rules?), but they seem a bit outdated in the age of Netflix and might also face legal challenges as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement.
For now, though, Canada's porn producers have some hours to fill.
Joshua Keating is a staff writer at Slate focusing on international affairs and writes the World blog. Follow him on Twitter.
