In Canada, Average Is Getting Better

It's the time of year for making lists and checking them twice.

Among the year end rankings that A&O&B's music statistician Michael O'Malley creates is a Cancon ranker of Canadian content music based on how it performed in listener research.

In 2013, 140 current hits were rated by Canadian country radio fans.

• Nine of the top 50 were Cancon (18%), down from 16 in 2012, 12 in 2011 and 11 in 2010
• 30 of the top 100 were Cancon (30%), flat from 31 in 2012, down from 37 in 2011 and 36 in 2010
• 24 of the BOTTOM 50 in the 2013 tests were Cancon, down from 30 in 2012, 32 in 2011, 34 in 2010

Congrats and thank you to the the (largely independent) artists and producers of Canadian content songs for doing a better job of bringing up your averages by creating fewer tunes that never rose from the bottom of the research rankers.

There was a time in Canada when there was a cottage industry designed to make Canadian content music that radio was "required by law" to play.

Pleasing listeners while also satisfying regulators is better for all of us!

Fewer songs testing down at the bottom (and, maybe even, the top too) improves the overall averages and that is a step in the right direction.