The ADISQ Gala is coming for the great celebration of local music: awards, laughter and controversies will be on the menu like every year. Moreover, we will not forget to highlight the successes and fears of the sector: a record number of Quebec titles released, a record year in terms of financial benefits, but always this increasingly precise fear that the boat is sinking. Only 8% of the music listened to in Quebec on the platforms is French-speaking, and only 5% comes from Quebec. So who is to blame ?
To streaming platforms? Recommendation algorithms? To the public who doesn’t listen enough? Obviously, there are many reasons and streaming platforms are largely responsible. But the next jolt will come from a completely different actor: the planned end of satellite radio channels.
Indeed, Sirius XM is gradually moving from satellite broadcasting of this audio content to digital broadcasting of music via web radios. So far, nothing abnormal, the digitalization of radio and satellite waves becoming widespread throughout the world. On the other hand, we forget that Sirius .
The latest SOPROQ report indicates that the rights paid by Sirius Sirius XM is a private player and, as such, has every legitimacy to transform its business strategies. Thus, three French-speaking channels (not just Quebec) have already been deleted, as well as CBC/Radio-Canada channels.
Paradoxically, the style of music that is certainly the most delegitimized in Quebec (with rap) is the very one that has allowed it to survive for several years: more than 80% of the revenues of the Quebec music industry were driven by revenues from from the United States, and mainly thanks to a few country artists appearing on both French-speaking channels and American country channels. Due to a complex but united distribution system – a share of the money generated by the great artists supporting the next generation – it will therefore not be the only country artists who will absorb the shock, but the entire Quebec music industry.
Thus, the entire music industry, its representatives and our leaders could have suspected what was going to happen: this windfall is doomed to dry up, the income from American satellite radio channels will soon no longer be able to support the music industry. Quebecois. We are then entitled to ask ourselves the following questions. How is it that this announced industrial accident did not lead to preparation for the transition, both by the private sector and the public sector? How is it that the sustainability of this cultural heritage has not been thought of when music and artists were already weakened by the record crisis and the ridiculous income from streaming ?
Building the Quebec music of tomorrow
Complex causes, complex answers. ADISQ was also created to support Quebec’s music industries following the oil crisis and the hasty departure of majors of Quebec in the 1970s. She will still have a lot to do in the coming years.
Certainly, we will not attend the final ADISQ Gala this year, but we invite industrialists, private and public actors as well as the supervisory ministers to take this problem very seriously and to take advantage of this event to think about and build the Quebec music of tomorrow.
It is time for the cultural – and political – value of Quebec music to take precedence over private and economic interests alone. The ADISQ Gala often serves to give the image of a family united within the industry, which is not the case: if these industries share the same house that is Quebec, their coexistence resembles more like a shared accommodation than a community. However, the house is also burning in the cultural environment. And here too, we should not look elsewhere.
We are therefore not calling for an examination of conscience, but for support by the government and the industry for the creation of an independent structure with a capacity for analysis, orientation and synergy of the initiatives carried by all the stakeholders (including researchers!) to support the actors of Quebec culture and their discoverability in and through digital environments.
In particular, we invite a significant promotion of the 2023-2028 digital creativity strategy, the investment of $34 million being a drop in the ocean for a Quebec cultural market worth $11 billion and more than 140,000 jobs. !