A supply more abundant than ever | The Press

Statistics don’t tell the whole story, but can indicate trends. In terms of culture, in Quebec, indicators are on the rise: more songs and books are being published, more films, television shows, concerts and shows are being produced than 20 years ago. The supply is even more abundant than ever.

The upward movement has been underway for more than a decade in most cultural sectors – theatre, in slight decline, constitutes the counter-example. In music, the drop in production costs, combined with the shift to online listening, has caused a surge of new albums. The advent of new channels and platforms has sparked a surge in demand for audiovisual content. The arrival of several new publishing houses has improved the literature offering.

The Quebec population has also increased, of course. However, “the number of artists is increasing faster than the population,” notes François Colbert, holder of the Chair of Arts Management at HEC Montréal.

Is Quebec’s cultural offering too abundant? The unease is palpable among all the professionals and observers of culture contacted by The Press. The question is considered “delicate”, almost “moral”.

MusicAction, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts declined our interview requests.

“There will never be too many good projects, too many good artists and good creations, never too much art in our lives”, judges David Laferrière, president of RIDEAU, an association of broadcasters which holds its annual meeting starting today in Quebec. Now, having said that, he adds: “It obsesses me, this question of volume. We do not have the financial means to adequately broadcast the shows. »

The case of music

Jacinthe Plamondon Émond, from the InTempo Musique label, is categorical: “We have been producing too much for a long time [pour la capacité de notre marché] “, she says. This observation is shared to varying degrees by many in the Quebec music industry, where the explosion of supply and the increase in international competition have been marked in recent years.

Before, records sold massively and in a short time. The platform economy has turned this system upside down. “They need a mass of content with a lot of turnover,” summarizes the president of InTempo Musique, which forces companies and artists “to create volume” to hope to collect a crowd of micropayments sufficient to keep them up to date. flow.

“This system is harmful from a business point of view, harmful from a cultural point of view and harmful from a human point of view,” insists Jacinthe Plamondon Émond. Eve Paré, general director of ADISQ, is less alarmist, but admits to being “concerned by the difficulty [pour l’industrie] to support so many musical projects.

Quantity equals diversity

The advent of the Internet has not only encouraged the increase in cultural offerings, it has also contributed to its diversification by allowing the development of niches. “Indigenous literature has exploded [au Québec], For example. There are plenty of offers like that, very niche, which find their audience because there is an appetite for it,” explains Nellie Brière, digital communications strategist.

This kind of thing can work in a large globalized market or for a dominant culture, but not in Quebec, where “we don’t have the population density” necessary, according to her.

“There have always been many called and few chosen in the art world,” recalls Dannick Trottier, director of the music department at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). At some point, there is a form of natural elimination that takes place. » François Colbert agrees: not all books, all films, all albums will find their audience and not all artists trained by different professional schools or conservatories will have a career either.

The number of people old enough to consume culture in Quebec has only increased by around 1% per year since the 1990s. “Now, in 2023, this 1% is made up of many newcomers who are perhaps not be not yet [attachés] to Quebec culture, he adds. We are facing a market that is barely moving. »

Would one of the keys therefore be to expand further into diversity? Just for Laughs believes so. After noting a drop in attendance at its festival around 2018-2019, its management noticed that it was not reaching the different communities making up Quebec society. The organization has therefore initiated a transformation, which is proving fruitful, according to its director, Patrick Rozon (see other text).

Do less?

Hélène Messier judges that in audiovisual, the context requires that we invest more to produce more quality content and ensure a Quebec presence on our screens. In the field of entertainment, David Laferrière leans towards the opposite solution. “We need to think seriously about the question of decline,” he thinks. Do a little less, but better. » Eve Paré, from ADISQ, also believes that we must “focus aid towards projects that are promising and where there is long-term career development”.

“There is something very sensitive in this question,” she specifies, however.

Ni M^me Paré nor David Laferrière have a clear idea of ​​the terms of the tightening of supply that they are considering.

The world of books may already have a solution. “Some publishing houses are choosing to publish a little fewer titles,” says Karine Vachon, general director of the National Association of Book Publishers, using the term “degrowth”. Production costs, including the increase in the price of paper, weigh in the balance, but she also evokes a “desire to further support the life of each book and promote it well”.

This better “support” also mentioned by David Laferrière would be the possibility of allocating more human and financial resources to fewer projects. Readjustment which would require better financing of the marketing operations of broadcasters and content producers. One thing is certain, specifies the president of RIDEAU, this decline “must not be at the expense of emerging artists and niche disciplines”.

Doing less but better may seem logical, but Nellie Brière senses a trap.

“If you reduce quantity, you necessarily reduce quality. Quantity allows you to shine internationally, she says. It’s like in hockey: the more players you have on the territory, the more chances you have of seeing them make it to the National League. In fact, we have to ask ourselves what we want to serve: influence or profitability? »