Music Industry

What’s slowing Canadian adoption of streaming? YouTube.

Music industry site Music Ally has published a profile of Canada which makes for some interesting reading.

For example, out of a population of 36 million, 88.5% (31.8 million) of us are Internet users. And with 13.9 million broadband connections, 89.8% of the population has access to high-speed Internet. Oh, and we have 31.5 million mobile phones.

Here are a few other nuggets:

  • 91% of Canadians listen to music.
  • 98% of teens and 96% of millennials are big into playlists. The overall Canadian participation is 84%.
  • Sales of CDs in 2019 will not come close to the number of units sold last year. Digital albums will do even worse.

Canada, however, lags behind many countries when it comes to streaming music. I firmly believe that usurious data costs are a big part of the problem. Why do Australians get more than twice the data on their phones at half the cost?

Looking at things another way, 56% of Canadians are listening to music via on-demand streaming. Compare that to the global average of 61%.

This report, however, focuses on the popularity of YouTube in Canada. According to one quoted study, 79% of Canadians used YouTube for music. Of that number, 45% say that YouTube is their go-to source for on-demand music.

Music Canada, the country’s biggest music industry lobby group, commissioned a study that says revenues lost to YouTube cost Canadian creators $550 million. Given that total music income in Canada for 2018 was $572 million, you can see the problem.

Read the full report 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 39679 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

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