King Arthur Movie Tristan

Some time ago, New Zealand was looking at impose content requirements on its broadcasters:

...whether or not New Zealand should impose local content requirements on its broadcasters. Advocates were pushing for a legislated requirement that radio and television stations play a certain amount of content created by New Zealand artists and producers. Such measures, it was argued, would help preserve the cultural specificity of the land of the long white cloud.

Economist Martin Richardson looked at other countries who had done so, very specifically Canada. He examined the CRTC's 35% rule, which states that "all radio stations must ensure that 35% of their popular musical selections are Canadian each week."

Many people, of course, point to Celine Dion, Shania Twian or Nickelback as success stories from the 35% content rule, Richardson sees them as the failure of the rule:

“If you listen to people like Celine Dion, Shania Twain, or Avril Lavigne, they are Canadian, they get played – or, at least, used to get played – preferentially on Canadian radio stations, but they sound generically international,” Richardson says. “There is nothing distinctively Canadian about them at all, as opposed to some of their predecessors. Why? Once you have a cultural quota in place, you are forcing consumers to listen to more local content. Let’s assume that consumers have a preference for more international-type content. The obvious incentive is for local artists to start producing international music. The whole point of this is to preserve the local content, but actually by putting a restriction in place, you give local providers a very strong incentive to actually change their style and sound much more international."

What you get, in other words, is Canadians that don't sound Canadian. You gain the performer, but lose the uniquely Canadian voice. This article is a good read if you are interested in Canadian cultural issues.

Oh, and New Zealand? "Eventually the country’s broadcasters agreed to voluntary local content targets."