Music Industry

The Canadian recorded music has a decent year in 2020

While the pandemic has caused havoc with musicians, venues, support staff, and other aspects of the business music, the part of the industry dealing with the distribution of music had done okay.

New figures from MRC Data/Billboard show that music consumption in Canada was up by 6.5 in 2020, pushed higher by a 16.1% increasing in streaming.

At the end of the year, 9.3 million Canadians subscribed to a streaming music service. That’s up from 7.8 million from February 2020.

If we look at total album equivalent (TEA, which says 1500 streams = the sale of one album), consumption reached 73.9 million units, which is up from 69.4 million in 2019. That’s even after bundled stream offers ended. For example, Rogers offered Spotify accounts with new mobile phones for a while

Nice stuff–but these bigger numbers don’t necessary mean higher revenues. And it doesn’t even begin to dent the financial disaster that’s beset live music.

More on Canada’s music scene here.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 38040 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

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