Return to the Transistor festival | The Press

What a great idea Julien Morissette had eight years ago to create the Transistor festival, dedicated to digital radio and the world of podcasts. He and his colleague Clara Lagacé, general director, are surfing a world in turmoil.

The event took place last week in Gatineau, in the charming Old Aylmer sector, and I spent two very enriching days there. Here’s an overview of what I was able to get between my two ears.

The steady rise of the audiobook

In addition to events open to the general public, a series of panels was offered to audio professionals. A very interesting discussion focused on the superb rise of the audiobook. Be careful, it’s not tomorrow that Quebec authors will be able to afford a villa in Saint-Tropez thanks to their copyrights, but sales are increasing.

“Five years ago, when we asked people what an audiobook was, they said it was for the visually impaired,” said Joanie Trembay, co-founder of Nara, a streaming platform dedicated entirely to audiobooks. Quebecois. ” This is no longer the case today. »

It has also been said that the audio book does not cannibalize the sale of the paper version. In any case, this is the idea defended by Annie Reeves, director, internal productions and digital audio, at Radio-Canada. There are various strategies, but when both formats are launched at the same time, the audio version will sell three times more in the first 30 days.

There was obviously talk of the role of artificial intelligence and artificial voices that could replace “real” narrators. As we can see, the audiobook phenomenon, just like the recording and cinema industries, comes with enormous challenges.

Popularity of live podcasts

The Transistor festival opened on Wednesday 24 with the presentation of the podcast Cream Rinse by Denis Drolet. The recording took place on the stage of the Maison de la culture de Gatineau in front of 800 people who paid $45 to attend.

The public’s enthusiasm for this type of podcast is astounding. Those who run them now tour. They arrive in cities with their guests (Jay Laliberté received Mona from Grenoble in Characters Podcast last Thursday evening), and the rooms are filled with spectators who appreciate the improvised and spontaneous side of these happenings.

Podcast fight

At the Transistor festival, we like to try new formulas. So, this year, we tried a podcast fight, a bit like the Book Fight. Three people were invited to come and defend podcasts produced in Quebec, English Canada and France.

We were entitled to Creation of wealth/Labor of Loveadapted from the book by Emmanuelle Jacques, Expectingwhich highlights the concerns parents may have when giving birth to children while we are hit by a serious climate crisis, and Cerno, the anti-investigationa 124-episode podcast that deals with the series of murders of around twenty elderly women that occurred in the 1980s in Paris.

Even if the public had a preference for Wealth creationit was agreed that everyone was a winner, as in the past inFan School.

Check boxes

One of the most captivating meetings was undoubtedly the one that focused on indigenous and non-indigenous co-productions. It brought together the multidisciplinary artist Émilie Monnet, the rapper and producer Samian, as well as Sonia Bonspille Boileau, screenwriter and director of For you Florathe first indigenous drama series broadcast on Radio-Canada.

Participants said some astonishing and courageous things, particularly about the quotas and rules imposed by the institutions that finance films, television series or podcasts.

“I’m sometimes aware that I’m a box to check when they hire me,” Samian said. “You have to feel that it’s a real invitation,” said Émilie Monnet. “We understand it quite quickly when it’s about checking a box. »

Samian finds that we “work too much with percentages”. “Institutions cut us off from possibilities,” he added. These remarks did not fail to provoke a reaction from the audience.

The rapper prefers to find a mix in the creative and production teams. “On the contrary, we must create encounters between people. »

New podcasts

Some are taking advantage of the Transistor festival to launch new podcasts. This was the case of the OHdio team who came to present Turbulence: navigating anxiety disordersa podcast in five episodes which allows Julien Morissette to address this delicate subject which affects many people in the country.

The author has obtained from the Order of Psychologists the right to register the psychotherapy that he decides to undertake. I warn you, you will be glued to this podcast. Finally, I understood what people who suffer from anxiety or panic attacks experience.

In the same vein, I also listened with great attention It will take as long as it takes: quest of a stutterer. This series of episodes, which will be put online later in May, offers Michel Montreuil the chance to take us into the world of a stutterer and the steps he takes to fight against this mysterious speech disorder. .

These two podcasts reminded me of the excellent series In troublean incursion into the reality of those living with an eating disorder with journalist Geneviève Garon and director Martin Girard.

Many podcasts help to break down prejudices by placing the journalist or presenter at the heart of the subject. This is undoubtedly what most distinguishes this format from “traditional” radio.

$325,000 for a weekly series

The Minister of Culture and Communications of Quebec, Mathieu Lacombe, came to announce good news to the Transistor team. It grants a sum of $325,000 for the creation and production of a weekly series entitled Prime time. In each episode, we will discover the stories of people who come from all regions of Quebec.

“This project is part of an approach that I recommend, that is to say turning towards digital and towards the future to tell what we are,” declared the minister.

This ambitious documentary project has been simmering in Julien Morissette’s head for several years.