Here is this week's Nielsen Marketwatch report which features Canadian music stats for the current week and YTD with comparisons to last year. This chart is published every Tuesday.
By External Source
Here is this week's Nielsen Marketwatch report which features Canadian music stats for the current week and YTD with comparisons to last year. This chart is published every Tuesday. The abbreviation "TEA" is a term used to describe the sale of music downloads or singles. A track equivalent album is equal to 10 tracks, or 10 songs.
The ticket resale platform has been hit with two $10,000 fines for allegedly selling tickets above face value and facilitating a transaction without having proof of the original price, failing to comply with the province's recent legislation which prohibits reselling tickets above their original value.
Ontario is continuing its crackdown on ticket resales.
The Ontario government has fined the ticket resale platform StubHub $20,000 for acting in non-compliance of the province's Ticket Sales Act. The Ontario Consumer Beware List shows that StubHub has been hit with two fines, each worth $10,000, for allegedly "making a ticket available for sale above face value" and "facilitating a transaction without having proof of the original price."
Earlier this year, the province made a law capping resale tickets above face value. The amendment to the Ticket Sales Act was initially proposed by Doug Ford in March ahead of the World Cup in June, after he claimed that resellers were "gouging" during major events like the Toronto Blue Jays' World Series appearance and Taylor Swift's Eras tour. Live Nation Ontario quickly endorsed Ford's proposal in a statement and Ticketmaster followed suit in April by delisting all resale tickets and banning the practice on its platform in Ontario.
Although StubHub was only fined on Sept. 9, it is one of 27 resale websites that were investigated by the Ontario government over the summer for possible non-compliance with the new Bill 97. Earlier this month, SeatGeek was fined $25,000 for allegedly making "a ticket available or facilitating the sale of a ticket [that] exceeded the resale price cap," failing to disclose the total price of a ticket when purchased from the primary seller and facilitating a "sale without proof of total price when purchased from primary seller." StubHub was added to the Consumer Beware List around the same time as SeatGeek, but was not yet fined.
StubHub says that secondary markets don't have access to original pricing information, which is only held by the original platform or point of sale. The company says that some ticket types like season packages do not contain pricing information and that resellers can also doctor receipts to fake list prices and sell tickets at higher prices, and that the government has asked the Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery to draft new regulations to help provide more transparency regarding such pricing information and facilitate its obtention.
"We strongly disagree with this fine imposition of this administrative penalty order and will appeal," a spokesperson for StubHub tells Billboard Canada. "The fact is we are upholding our responsibility as best we can despite the law’s silence on some core issues, like how a marketplace should verify the original price of a ticket. The Government has acknowledged this gap and indicated the Ticket Sales Act will be fixed through regulation. We will continue to engage in productive conversation to address these matters, while we defend our rights through the appeals process.”
In June, just ahead of the World Cup, the province increased the maximum penalty for non-compliance from $10,000 to $25,000. The province has explained that businesses are added to the Consumer Beware List if they "fail to respond to consumer complaints or violate provincial consumer protection laws," specifically "in relation to the Consumer Protection Act or other acts of the ministry."
