Major music companies send letter to Canada’s CRTC, urging it not to regulate streaming as if it were radio
Major music companies send letter to Canada’s CRTC, urging it not to regulate streaming as if it were radio
Streaming services will be required to pay 5% of their Canadian revenue to support local content, including radio stations.
Under those rules, streaming services that are not Canadian-owned and have more than CAD $25 million (approx. USD $18.5 million) in revenue in Canada annually are required to pay 5% of that revenue into funds that subsidize Canadian content and creators.
Under that plan, 1.5% of music streamers’ revenue would go towards subsidies for local radio stations.
Lol, yea, pay your fucking taxes, grifters.
Unfortunately, that 5% fee means Spotify prices are going up 10%
Interesting that they're pumping back money into traditional radio.
The letter argued that Canada’s radio regulations were designed to address the problems created by its vast geography, its “linguistic duality” (English and French), and the fact that space on analog radio is limited, making decisions about what gets broadcast necessary.
Gee, that's not the history I remember. I'm not super familiar, but wasn't it about holding back Americanisation? (We have radio band allocations separately)
Awww those poor poor billion dollar corporations.... So sad.... /s
Does the CRTC do anything to help Canada at this point? They've allowed all telecoms/media to be merged down to 2 and a half entities. They've allowed cell and internet service prices to be the highest in the western world. They've forced CanCon rules that subsidize media monopolies while driving viewers to non-Canadian platforms. And now they are going to drive other services out of Canada at the request of those same media monopolies.
You think Spotify is going to pull out of Canada because they make $23.75m a year instead of $25m? 🙄🙄🙄
There are streaming services that already are not available in Canada because we are too small of a market to be worth the hassle. Increasing that hassle will not make the situation better.
The letter argued that Canada’s radio regulations were designed to address the problems created by its vast geography, its “linguistic duality” (English and French), and the fact that space on analog radio is limited, making decisions about what gets broadcast necessary.
Citation needed DiMA. Way to try framing the issue to look in your favour.
Instead of those "issues" we now have locked down apps and opaque algorithms that reduce user control.
To be fair I have found some good stuff through the recommendations, but I also don't know how often they try to boost certain artists because of back room deals. Companies need regulations to keep them slightly honest.
My understanding was always that Canadian media is dominated by American creations in the art world. The regulations were put in place to subsidize the Canadian artists to help create a national identity separate from the US.
Oh no, don't tax the megacorps, that's mean CRTC, how could you?
Fuck 'em. They are parasites on the artistic world.
Dont hurt me profit!!!!
I can't believe you would stab me right in the profits!
If the music industry is against it, I'm for it. I don't even need to know what it is.
Funny how it's never the artists themselves who have concerns
The CRTC absolutely needs to adapt and relegislate/reinforce CanCon for the digital era. Ensuring Canadian artists get represented in Canada on some of the biggest streaming platforms is super important.
If CanCon gave more visibility to ALL Canadian artists, sure. The way it is on the radio, it seems that you don't have to be a good Canadian band, you just have to be a Canadian artist.
This hasn't been the case since the 1990s or so, when CanCon started to actually get good.
I will agree it sucked through the 70s and 80s, though. There was a looooong incubation period between the time CanCon took effect and the time it bore fruit in, eg, Canadian bands stopped sucking en-masse.
Alan Cross has a good podcast on CanCon and the long tail it required. I don't think modern governments can or will do anything like that again, where the payoff is decades after the costs and implementation.
I don't understand why streaming should support radio ? They should support artists and new artist via taxes though, that makes total sense.
But the radio ..?
Not sure where you're getting that from—this isn't about anyone helping radio stations. The idea is that the government would impose laws and taxes on large streaming services operating in Canada that are somewhat similar to those currently imposed on radio stations in Canada.
I'm for it as long as they don't force Canadian content on users in Canada. I'm all for supporting Canadian artists, but radio in particular is fucking awful bc all they play is rush and metric ad nauseum to meet their content requirements
You aren't wrong, with the caveat that Rush is awesome.
Metric isn't bad, either.
I admittedly haven't been a big radio listener for almost twenty years, but I saw a huge difference in ~1997 or so, when a lot of Canadian indie started getting airplay. I don't think we'd have Metric without CanCon requirements.