French Versions of CanCon Songs

[reidster]

I have a few question about French versions of CanCon songs, if you know any of the answers please feel free to post them. I feel like every CanCon song (by Canadian-artists popular only in Canada) has a French version for Quebec. Are these versions made out of their own will to get airplay in Quebec (and parts of New Brunswick/Northern Ontario)? Does the Government of Quebec require that all radio stations broadcast a % of French songs? I know they don't all have to be French, because they still play popular CHR songs from the US. I just find it so odd that artists who can barely pronounce words in French (Yes you, Alyssa Reid) have to record half their songs in French to be played in Montreal. Also, has this also been common practice? Or is it something relatively new?

Some Examples of Recent Songs:

[Nostalgia Kills]

Dec 4, 2011 13:36:21 GMT -5 reidster said:

I have a few question about French versions of CanCon songs, if you know any of the answers please feel free to post them. I feel like every CanCon song (by Canadian-artists popular only in Canada) has a French version for Quebec. Are these versions made out of their own will to get airplay in Quebec (and parts of New Brunswick/Northern Ontario)? Does the Government of Quebec require that all radio stations broadcast a % of French songs? I know they don't all have to be French, because they still play popular CHR songs from the US. I just find it so odd that artists who can barely pronounce words in French (Yes you, Alyssa Reid) have to record half their songs in French to be played in Montreal. Also, has this also been common practice? Or is it something relatively new?

Yes, they are made for the Quebec market to get airplay/increase popularity. The practice is not new - I remember Moist and David Usher recording a lot of french versions of their songs in the 90's/00's. It does seem very popular now though, especially with turbo pop being the sound of the day and Quebec's love affair with dance music since the 70's.

Quebec stations are required to play a minimum of 65% french music a week. For years they were getting around the minimum quotas by playing a lot of "montages" of english songs. A montage is a compilation of excerpts from a number of songs played without interruption. The CRTC only counts montages as 1 song. Some stations had been playing montages close to 20% of the time during the broadcast week. A recent ruling by the CRTC, however, stated that French stations were abusing the montage provision, and has therefore set the maximum % of allowable montages to 10% a week.