Some of the memorable audio system from the early Canadian Music Week (CMW) days was in 2008 when Nicholas Negroponte, the founding father of the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how’s Media Lab, gave a keynote handle that some discovered laughable, others downright scary. The nut of his message was that bits and bytes would rework the music trade’s future, that the CD was passé, that every one leisure would develop into customizable, and new supply programs would change how music was heard by audiences globally.
His phrases have been prophetic. Inside a yr of his speech, corporations like Deezer and Spotify let the horse out of the barn by launching their on-line music streaming providers and this shifted management of content material away from the foremost labels. The algorithm was born and nothing’s been the identical since.
Synchtank affords a concise snapshot of the upheaval happening within the music and media industries in the present day. It makes no agency predictions, however it does map the enjoying discipline and quotes folks on the entrance strains.
Disruptive applied sciences and copyright legislation could possibly be grist for the mill for Randy Lennox’s imaginative and prescient for CMW within the subsequent few years. At the least, that is my guess. He is aware of the music and media landscapes as a longstanding govt at Common and Bell Media, and he’s certain to dangle just a few carrots providing intel about these and different matters to draw future audiences to the annual occasion.
However there are different points at play. Whereas Goldman Sachs marks 2023 as a turning level for the music trade with by first ever main value improve by world streaming platforms, the modernization of outdated royalty fee buildings and the deployment of Generative A.I., their analysts forecast a bull run for the worldwide music trade, elevating 2024 income projections primarily based on a stronger outlook for reside music and music publishing.
The worldwide funding agency can also be assured {that a} strong reside music trade will proceed to develop. In Its In The Air report, it states that the sector “continued its robust rebound in 2023 with estimated revenues of US$33.1B in 2023 versus $26.5B in 2022.”
Nevertheless it’s not all wine and roses. Fewer acts that may fill the large stadiums and arenas are prepared or in a position to return on the street, and the charges they’re demanding to cowl manufacturing and journey prices have reached outlandish proportions. It’s common for main acts to spend tens of millions per present simply on crews to arrange and take down staging and lighting. The phases alone can price $10M plus to design and construct. Second and third-tier legacy acts are asking extra per present, typically desirous to earn the identical from their final tour however with half as many dates. The pandemic made many understand that house life has its benefits, however they nonetheless need to carry house a paycheque equal to what they have been beforehand incomes. Followers should be getting ticket value fatigue.
Then there’s the elephant within the room. A.I. is a scorching subject that’s conserving the authorized occupation in pocket, scaring the bejesus out of the creator communities and pushing long-held conventions off the desk and out the door. Gizmodo and Mediumhave rounded up a few of the finest A.I. bots generally accessible, some free to test-drive, others initially charging a nominal quantity to entice extra utilization. After which there’s Music Radio Artistic’s Mike Russell who walks us by way of the method that turns the abnormal into one thing far better.
Past the plain headline matters to draw audiences to CMW, there’s a variety of different matters and issues within the discipline.
On the media entrance, Corus Leisure’s inventory has gone manner down in latest weeks and could also be price even much less if the CRTC permits a signed deal between Rogers and Warner Bros. Discovery. The deal, efficient at the beginning of the brand new yr, takes a swath of English-language manufacturers from Corus and provides Rogers Canadian rights to standard U.S. life-style and factual manufacturers, together with HGTV, The Meals Community, Magnolia Community, The Cooking Channel, OWN, Discovery, Motor Development, Science, Animal Planet and I.D. Corus nonetheless has branding and content material offers with different key U.S. channels and studios, resembling Disney, the Historical past Channel, and Hallmark, but when fickle subscribers abandon ship, the writing could possibly be on the wall with out intervention. A faceoff looms with the regulator needing to tread fastidiously.
The profound monetary pressures at Corus are inflicting chaos. Earlier this week, CBC confirmed that just about three dozen staff have been minimize from newsrooms on the firm’s World Information division. CBC quotes an inside memo distributed to World Information staff that the modifications are “designed to organize our information division for extra financial strain, because the trade continues to evolve, as bigger worldwide tech giants supply content material and promoting platforms on to Canadians, and monopolize the Canadian promoting panorama.”
Group radio is struggling and has had little to no voice on the desk at CMW. With over 200 AM and FM broadcasting in 60+ languages throughout the nation, income for many is raised by way of annual fundraising campaigns. Integral to many non-urban communities, Meta (proprietor of Fb and Instagram) not too long ago blocked them from posting native occasions as a manner of avoiding paying information orgs as per the Online News Act. This has had a devastating impression on neighborhood radio broadcasters reaching their audience and has negatively impacted the dissemination of native information affecting their communities. How does one go about selling native occasions, charitable fundraisers, or civic information? Federal funding is drying up, so there’s an important want for a debate that may be picked up by different information media and hopefully achieve discover from politicians in Ottawa.
Whispers recommend personal broadcasters, squeezed for money, are wanting on the necessary funds they have to pay into the Group Radio Fund of Canada, and FACTOR or Musicaction. The regs are sophisticated and are defined by the CRTC here. From what I’ve heard, personal broadcasters need extra say about how they spend mandated CCD funds. How one tackles this delicate dialog in a public discussion board is hard, however my guess is the urgency of the matter will spill into the general public purview earlier than CMW rolls again into city subsequent yr.
There’s additionally the truth that festivals are scuffling with fewer sponsors, escalating expertise prices, greater insurance coverage premiums, stagnant federal funding and post-pandemic debt. Once more, based on a CBC News report, it prices 30 to 40% extra to prepare a competition this yr than it did in 2019, based on Martin Roy, govt director of Festivals and Main Occasions Canada, and revenues usually are not following go well with. Smaller live performance venues and golf equipment are additionally closing up. The quantity all advised post-pandemic isn’t accessible, however a bunch of causes loom massive, together with city gentrification, taxes, rents and insurance coverage prices.
On the floor, this yr’s CMW solid a shimmering mild on Canada’s music trade, however stress marks are beginning to present.
