Some players in the music industry in Canada have managed to earn more in the past year than before the pandemic. An increase in income that is explained by the rise of online listening platforms, which have made it possible to fill the absence of shows, and more. But these encouraging figures could however betray the harsh reality of Quebec artisans.
This is what emerges from preliminary data released Thursday by SOCAN, the organization that collects the annual perceptions of authors, composers and publishers, of all origins, in Canada.
SOCAN, which also looks after the interests of Canadian artisans in terms of listening to their music abroad, raised a total of $416 million last year. This is a record sum, slightly higher than that garnered in 2019, before the pandemic.
Of these 416 million, almost a third comes from digital, mainly platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. Between 2020 and 2021 alone, this source of revenue has grown by almost 24% for authors, composers and publishers. What to compensate for the drastic drop in the amounts collected for shows and songs played in public spaces on the radio, a decrease of around 70%.
“We are optimistic about the future. Because digital will continue to grow and shows are starting to resume, even if we remain cautious, ”said Martin Lavallée, head of the reproduction rights department at SOCAN.
How much for Quebec artists?
That said, remember that the data released Thursday by SOCAN also includes in part the amounts received in Canada on foreign songs, which are also often written and composed by foreigners.
And since it has been proven that the big American hits benefit disproportionately from the revenues of online listening platforms, it’s a safe bet that the Quebec industry does not benefit that much from the phenomenal growth of digital. Especially when you know that barely 8% of the songs listened to in Quebec on the platforms are from Quebec: 6% being Quebec and French-speaking.
” This is [l’angle mort] of the kind of press release that we publish today. In the past, online listening services have often used these figures to say that they give a lot of money to artists and that it is therefore wrong to ask the government to invest more in the culture of ‘here. But it’s not normal that digital platforms don’t give anything for local music, while in television, cable companies contribute enormously to local production,” insists Martin Lavallée, who has great hopes in the modernization of the Broadcasting Act promised by the Trudeau government.
SOCAN was unable on Thursday to quantify the share of the $416 million in revenue that went into the pockets of Quebec authors, composers and publishers last year. Certain elements revealed by the organization also prove that very few artisans of the music industry manage to make a fortune with the Internet. Over the past year, SOCAN members have earned an average of $67.14 from digital sources in Canada.
It should also be noted that international collections by Canadian members of SOCAN increased by 6% in 2021 compared to the previous year. But could this international success of the Canadians have been inflated artificially by that of the Ontario superstars Drake and The Weeknd, two members of SOCAN who wrote part of their songs?
Again, the figures released Thursday by SOCAN do not specify.