CBSC "Whoops"

I'm sure if the Canadian Broadcast Standards Commission could ask for a "do over" in regards to their decision in regards to the Dire Straits "money for nothing" scenario this week they surely would.

Here's a song that has been played thousands and thousands of times around the world for a couple of decades and now "one" isolated complaint in a smaller market in Eastern Canada has ignited a censorship issue that is resonating all around the world and once again casts our Canadian broadcast system as being terribly "out of touch" with reality.

First off there is a very long list of songs which some would deem to contain potentially offensive language (or content) and if we are going to comb through twenty or thirty years of music and lodge complaints about those songs the CBSC is going to be very busy.

As I said in my Edmonton Sun article "are we going to start putting sweaters on nude statues around the world now?"

The problem is the CBSC system itself.

One single complaint goes to a volunteer panel who, after several months, debate and vote on the complaint. They then issue a decision which tells the station they simply have to apologize for the complaint therein bringing the complaint forefront to the entire industry as well as the stations listeners.

Social media, that wasn't around when the CBSC started, now fires that decision out at break neck speed to thousands of people within minutes of it's release.

In this particular case one complaint launched about eight or nine months ago has rippled not only across our fair country but throughout the "world" causing stations to either modify the song or, as we are seeing by many stations, to declare they will not edit the artists legendary work, thus setting up a scenario where the CBSC may have to address punishment to each particular station if "one" person complains in each of those markets.

Recently there has been some discussion at the CRTC level about giving our broadcast commissions the power to fine offending broadcasters for flagrant rule violations which sets up a whole other major debate too.

Look I'm not a prude and there are some things I'd prefer not to hear or see on our airwaves but over my career I found that dialogue and compromise with a listener who complains is usually the way to resolve these problems.

Most of the culpability of programming comes at the Management level and most Managers are sanctioned about what they can say or do in our Canadian system in fear that any conflict with the CBSC could cause them (or the company) grief down the road so our system of complaints really isn't an open forum and maybe it should be.

Ron Cohen is a nice, smart man, and as I said in the opening I will bet he wasn't ready for the firestorm this has caused but if this is the song/complaint that gets some dialogue going as to establishing a more efficient system to address "offensive" broadcast complaints then maybe this Money for Nothing complaint can turn in to Money for Something.

Then maybe after they get that fixed we can address a long overdue assessment of another issue that is long overdue...Can Con.

Sorry...can of worms!