Steve Jones: Rethinking Cancon

Aidan G
31 minutes ago
2 min read

Steve Jones is the president of Stingray Radio. If you're at all in touch with the radio world, you will know him from his time working in places like Boston, Halifax, Toronto and the Cayman Islands.

If you have been following him on LinkedIn (and you should), you have been presented with many wild examples of what qualifies as Canadian content on the radio. We all have our favourites. Matt's are the collection of songs circa 1991 like Rod Stewart's Rhythm of my Heart and Bonnie Raitt's Something to Talk About qualifying as Cancon, while the entire album of Bryan Adams' Waking Up The Neighbours is not. Over the years the list has grown, and now that our planet is more connected than ever with technology, I think we can all agree it's time for a major overhaul of Cancon regulations.

Steve recognizes the lack of Canadian content recognition on streaming platforms and calls for a collaborative approach to modernize Canadian content rules. I also suggest that the regulations for radio should also include spoken word content; the regs are already in place for television.

Yes, this episode goes for close to an hour, and likely could have gone another hour. I think it's important to clarify, though, that we are not calling for the complete removal of Cancon regulations- the idea behind them is certainly sound. But as Steve attests in our conversation, they're currently doing more to hold back Canadian content than they're doing to prop it up.

Steve has a vision for how Canadian music can truly be celebrated and supported in the digital age. And who better to spearhead such a discussion than the President of one of the most forward-thinking radio companies in the country?

What do you Think?

Since this episode has been released - we have received a few responses and suggestions about creating a fair and equitable system for all involved. (Including Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube) If you would like to contribute, you can either send me an email to matt@soundoffpodcast.com -

Or go HERE an use your voice to record your response.

We will likely use it on a future episode.

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