The major record companies and streaming services have written an open letter urging Canadian broadcasting and telecoms regulator the CRTC to not extend content rules that currently apply to radio to streaming platforms as it implements Canada’s Online Streaming Act.
That legislation has already been criticised by the majors and services because it introduces the 5% streaming levy that is now being fought in the courts. However, the CRTC is now looking into implementing other elements of the act which, in the word’s of the Canadian government, aim to “ensure that Canadian stories and music are widely available on streaming platforms”. To that end, it recently ran some workshops involving industry representatives to inform a fuller consultation.
That has led Music Canada, representing the majors, and DiMA, speaking for the services, to publicly remind the CRTC that “radio and audio streaming are not the same”.
Which, they both admit, is kind of stating the obvious. “Out of context, it might seem odd for the largest streaming services and major music labels in Canada to write to a regulator asserting a truism, but we believe that the recent workshops have made this necessary”.
The new consultation will consider ways to promote the discoverability of Canadian content on streaming platforms, which has led to concerns that rules and obligations in relation to Canadian content that already exist in the radio sector could be extended to streaming. The majors and services argue that applying radio industry rules to streaming won’t work.
“Today’s radio regulations were carefully crafted for Canada’s radio environment”, the letter goes on. “One that is shaped by our vast geography, linguistic duality and a willingness in an analogue system to make decisions about what is available to Canadian listeners. They also reflect the limitations of the medium: a finite number of hours, increasingly centralised programming, and a live broadcast format, and relatively small number of recordings that radio broadcasts”.
None of these things apply with streaming, they add. “Being driven in terms of each consumer’s individual interest and activity”, they say, audio streaming “represents nearly infinite hours of listening, a vast catalogue of recordings, a plethora of languages, and has broken down not just physical geography but international borders as well”.
Streaming is also very different from an artist perspective, the letter insists. “Streaming has allowed Canadian artists with no home in the traditional radio system to be found by their Canadian and international fans”, it says, adding “this has led to higher levels of play on streaming for women and racially diverse artists compared to Canadian radio”.
Plus, “three of the top ten songs streamed in India in 2022 were by Canadian artists - a fact that would be inconceivable to the founders of our terrestrial broadcasting system”.
With all that in mind, the letter concludes, “We ask that as you move forward implementing the Online Streaming Act, you think of the streaming services and their interactions with Canadians for what they are today and not as a proxy to the broadcasting system of the 1900s”.