The FYI News Bulletin
Re:Sound’s 2019 annual report is now available as a PDF download.
By David Farrell
Re:Sound’s 2019 annual report is now available as a PDF download. Distribution income for the year totalled $39.7M, with $7.1M coming from foreign neighbouring rights orgs. Commercial radio income totalled $15.1M, satellite radio delivered $13.96M, public performance royalties totalled $5.49M, and CBC payments came in at $1.88M. All told, the not-for-profit processed 1.8B track plays in the year, up from 16M in 2009.
Outgoing President Ian MacKay writes in the intro to the report: “As my tenure at Re:Sound comes to a close, I’m proud of all we’ve accomplished in the past decade: we’ve achieved aggressive revenue growth (250%), expansion in revenue sources—including new public performance and streaming tariffs, and international revenues—as well as significant cost reductions through efficiencies.
”Re:Sound’s commitment to all of our rights holders is unwavering and is not the work of any one person. I have great confidence that the dedicated team at Re:Sound will continue to lead the way in advocacy, responsiveness, efficiency and transparency.”
We wish him well.
– The ECMA has teamed up with Global Music Match, a loose-knit affiliation of music export orgs around the world that has launched a pilot initiative to raise profiles of local artists in international music markets that find themselves sidelined by the pandemic. Details can be found here.
– A tip of the hat to the following Governor General Canada Day honourees named from a list of 123 "remarkable Canadians"on July 1: Darcy Ataman, M.S.C. for his GG Meritorious Service Cross, awarded for founding Make Music Matter, an org that helps survivors of armed conflict overcome emotional trauma; Sandy Boutin M.S.C, for founding the Festival de Musique emergente en Abitibi–Temiscaminque and for promoting Francophone culture; Michael Andre Burns M.S.C, M.S.M for spearheading the 2017 Invictus Games; James Mercer M.S.M, for creating programs that promote trad instruments and folk music tied to Newfoundland’s west coast heritage.
– Live Nation Ontario is extending its successful Budweiser Stage at Home broadcast series on Citytv into July. The series premiered on May 30 and has included performances from The Black Crowes,The Trews, Blue Rodeo,Alan Doyle, Barenaked Ladies, Walk Off the Earth, John Legend and Lennon Stella. The upcoming episode, set for July 11, will feature Dallas Smith and Dean Brody.
“The incredible fan reaction to Budweiser Stage at Home is even bigger than we had hoped. We’re excited to extend the series for several episodes and look forward to delivering more top-notch concert experiences to music-loving viewers everywhere,” said Riley O’Connor, Chairman, Live Nation Canada.
– Alanis Morissette, Bobby Bazini, Johnny Orlando, Shad, Josh Ramsay from Marianas Trench and The Reklaws have teamed up with Amazon Canada for an Alexa Loves Canada marketing campaign. Tied in are various Amazon Music playlists stitched together by a number of Maple Music acts that include Tory Lanez, Michael Bublé, Lindsay Ell, FouKi, Night Lovell, and Ria Mae. Details here.
– Add OnViva.Studio to the options list for creators to monetize live videos. The July 1 launch of the network promises content creators to price, schedule and deliver live broadcasts to audiences of any size through one-to-one or one-to-many paid video calls, and sell digital content. The company run by CEO Chris Smith is backed by private capital and is offering an 85/15 split favouring the artist through until the end of the month The acts select the entry price and the site offers a tip jar. Like Zoom, creators can interact with an audience. The website is OnViva.studio, and the publicist is Krystle McGilp, 416-953-6009, krystle@infinitycomm.ca
– In Winnipeg, HomeRoutes is gearing up for a re-launch of its online concerts program, switching from FacebookLive to another platform offering all the bells and whistles that Dan Mangan’s successful Vancouver-based Side Door performance streamer has.
– Meantime, MusicBC has launched SoundOn, an ambitious program to assist the live community that has city officials, promoters, presenters, venues, production, and artists working in on the project, and the aforementioned Mangan’s support and blessing. With financial support from Creative BC, the provincial government, several corporate sponsors and private funders, the initiative plans to fund and stream 100 shows in its first year. Details and funding applications on the SoundON website.
– Festival International de Jazz de Montréal had federal funding totalling more than $2M for its recent digital edition. The two departments, Canadian Heritage and Economic Development and Official Languages, approved the grants through a special $500M covid emergency relief fund for arts, culture, heritage and sports orgs.
– Blue-chip entertainment consultant Paul Farberman routinely jets between LA, Miami, Toronto, NYC and the Pacific Rim and is well known to many here from his days as VP, Business Affairs at CBS Canada and 17 years working with Team Celine. He’s just launched a website that offers a panoramic view of his career to date and multiple pictures of his life in the fast lane. It’s pretty darned impressive.
– Overall there were 400M music streaming subscribers in Q1 2020, up 30% from Q1 2019, with 93M net new subscribers added. This compares to the 77M added a year earlier. Mark Mulligan offers an explanation as to why streaming revenue growth slowed in 2019 while subscriber growth accelerated. The simple answer is hinged on Average Revenue per User. The combination of family plans, promotional trials and progressively more global growth coming from lower ARPU, emerging markets means that the long-term outlook for streaming is that subscriber growth will increasingly outpace revenue growth. Mulligan’s facts and figures can be read in full here.
