YouTube Music, Spotify and Apple Music each contain a catalog of more than 50, 70 and 90 million songs, respectively. On the general YouTube platform, hundreds of hours of content are uploaded every minute… and the service accounts for 49% of music streaming in Canada.
When they arrived in our market, streaming services promised us music consumption that was both open to the world and hyper-personalized, and effortless. To achieve this, these companies use multiple enhancement tools created by humans and algorithms.
It works ? Are we discovering more music than before? Is it more varied, closer to our tastes? According to a study published by the British government in September 2021, the 10% of the most listened to songs between 2014 and 2020 monopolized between 95% and 97% of the listenings.
In Quebec, the dynamics are certainly similar – but the figures to confirm this are only just beginning to be available. It is only since last October that, for the first time since the arrival of these companies in our market, a sufficient number of continuous listening services provide data specific to Quebec.
Not very encouraging data
The latter, processed exclusively by ADISQ (Quebec Association of the Record, Show and Video Industry), are necessarily preliminary, but not very encouraging: the last week of October 2021, around 7% of listenings made streaming in the Belle Province concerned pieces by local artists, all languages included. This is about seven times less than the shares we have seen historically in record sales.
Is it simply because the public does not choose it? It is a myth.
According to YouTube music boss Lyor Cohen, 80% of listening time is linked to recommendations made by the company. After all, you have to find your way among so many songs.
The problem is that the playlists and other recommendations made by online music services give pride of place to large international repertoires, to the detriment of local and independent content.
The Broadcasting Act
If our music has always succeeded in making its way to the ears and to the hearts of the Quebec public despite the omnipresence of hits from our American neighbor, it is of course thanks to the immense talent of our artists and to the dynamism. independent and local businesses that develop their careers. But it is also thanks to an ecosystem of effective financial support and a strong and courageous legislative framework. At the heart of this ecosystem is, among others, the Broadcasting Act.
It is thanks to this law, for example, that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) was able to require commercial radio stations to broadcast 65% of French-language music – a crucial element in the development of our music industry, again. today. And it is under this same law that broadcasting companies are required to contribute to the financing of our music.
It is high time that online music services, mostly foreign, should also be required to showcase our music and help fund it.
Hard hit by the pandemic, the music industry has just gone through some very dark months. Modernization of the Broadcasting Act, bravely started by Steven Guilbeault last November, carried a glimmer of hope. Sadly, the bill died on the soap opera after being the subject of misinformation claiming that the inclusion of social media distribution activities like YouTube would be a threat to free speech, which is simply not true.
Pablo Rodriguez is Minister of Canadian Heritage for the second time, and everything is in place so that work can be resumed quickly. We offer him all our collaboration to ensure that the future of our music is radiant and that our cultural sovereignty is protected.
Canada has always been a pioneer in this regard, today we must continue to be so and ensure that the rules that have served us so well in traditional media are brought online, in the right way.
For our language and for our culture, our music must be supported and promoted in order to reach the public.
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