Brian Fauteux

Debates about regulating Canadian content for streaming media platforms are ongoing, and key issues include revising the definition of Canadian content for audio and visual cultural productions and whether big streaming companies would be mandated to follow new Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) policies. Global streaming companies are fighting regulations requiring them to fund Canadian content and news. The Motion Picture Association-Canada, which represents large streamers like Netflix, Amazon and Disney, has argued that the CRTC should not impose “mandatory positions, functions or elements of a ‘Canadian program’” on global streaming companies. The Online Streaming Act, passed in 2023, amended the Broadcasting Act to “ensure that online streaming services make meaningful contributions to Canadian and Indigenous content.” For example, according to the act, online audio streaming services that make more than $25 million in annual revenue and that aren’t affiliated with a Canadian broadcaster will contribute five per cent of those funds to organizations such as FACTOR, Musicaction, the Community Radio Fund of Canada and the Indigenous Music Office, among others. This has the potential to benefit musicians in Canada. But Apple and Spotify, and other tech and music companies, have banded together (under the Digital Media Association, DiMA), labelling the act a “streaming tax” on users. This is a pivotal moment to think about the important role of policy to support Canada’s independent artists, as well as public and community media, and the increasing power of global streaming companies when it comes to setting the terms of cultural policy. One way to do this is to consider the trajectory of satellite radio. Lessons from satellite radio As I have previously argued, the history of satellite radio anticipated the broader turn to subscription music listening. Similarly, the story of satellite radio in Canada exemplifies the tensions arising in policymaking today with streaming media. As I discuss in my new book, Music in Orbit: Satellite Radio in the Streaming Space Age, the launch of subscription satellite radio services in the United States in 2001, and their subsequent entry into the Canadian market in 2005, raised questions about how to regulate these new services. Canadian content regulations had been established for broadcast radio in 1971, and these needed to be sorted out for satellite radio channels. Many artists and music industry workers were keen to allow the service to enter the country, while others were concerned with the lack of substantial cultural protectionism. Canadian content for satellite When the CRTC first licensed Sirius and XM in Canada, the license stipulated that each provider had to offer at least eight Canadian-produced channels, each with at least 85 per cent Canadian content. (These guidelines countered the satellite providers’ proposal of only four Canadian channels each.) Later, the CRTC revised regulations, so that no less than 10 per cent of unique channels, per provider, had to be Canadian. Critics felt that relegating Canadian music to a small selection of channels higher on the channel lineup (in the 160s and 170s) was a disservice to Canadian content regulations, as those channels were easy to ignore. They also thought that, overall, the domestic music content featured on satellite would be lower than what was heard on terrestrial radio. During the 2004 CRTC public hearing before the licensing of Sirius and XM in Canada, Neil Dixon, the president of Canadian Music Week, argued that “one of the most difficult things we had to do in promoting independent music on an independent label was getting it outside this country.” Dixon championed the advantages of satellite radio in comparison to terrestrial radio, as did several creatives entities. They spoke of the belief and hope in seeing Canadian, as well as Indigenous artists, heard beyond Canadian borders and in areas not served by broadcast radio. CBC Radio 3 and satellite Among the Canadian satellite channels was CBC Radio 3, a channel programming 100 per cent independent Canadian music. It served as a beacon of hope for Canadian artists because its music programming drew from a wide variety of artists who had not yet received commercial radio play. This channel came from a financial and programming partnership between CBC, the public broadcaster, and Sirius Canada. Years after the 2011 merger of Sirius and XM in Canada, SiriusXM Canada was restructured in 2016, with 70 per cent of the company now owned by U.S. SiriusXM. This also meant that the CBC would cease being a shareholder in SiriusXM Canada. In 2022, Sirius XM Canada announced it was removing CBC Radio 3 and CBC Country; these were replaced by channels programmed by SiriusXM. The company also cut French-language CBC music channels ICI Musique Franco-Country and ICI Musique Chansons and introduced new French music channels. Uproar over cutting of CBC channels The cutting of CBC channels sparked uproar among artists in Canada, namely independent ones. SiriusXM had become a major income source for Canadian artists, particularly by comparison to the low royalty payments from Canadian commercial radio and streaming platforms. One headline in the Toronto Star read: “‘Final nail in the coffin’: Why SiriusXM dropping CBC Radio 3 is ‘potentially catastrophic’ for Canadian artists.” For artists, a royalty payment could be about $50 per play, divided between artist and owner of the song’s master (typically labels). Subscription radio and superstar artists Among the new channels introduced by SiriusXM when it simultaneously cut CBC channels was Mixtape North, devoted to Canadian hip hop and R&B. Such a channel has the potential to support upcoming Canadian artists in these genres. However, the Mixtape North channel description mentions massively successful commercial artists: “Playing the newest hits from Drake and Jessie Reyez to classic throwbacks from Kardinal Offishall and K-OS to emerging voices.” In late May 2025, according to xmplaylist.com, the most played artists were The Weeknd and Drake, as well as Melanie Fiona, who has a new song with American artist LaRussell. A balance between superstar artists and smaller or independent artists is evident. The channel seems designed for more superstar artists than Radio 3, because it is without the CBC’s public media mandate to play independent artists. Precarity of public media institutions SiriusXM is a massive commercial subscription radio company with a long history of working to alter cultural policy in its favour. Some have argued that it didn’t make sense for a public media company to partner with a commercial subscription radio service in this way. The precarious position of public institutions and regulations to support smaller or independent artists remains a pressing issue. Traditional public broadcasters globally, since at least the early 2000s, have faced a growing pressure to reconceive service delivery and responsiveness to public needs and interests, and the multimedia ways people may want to tune in or engage. The story of satellite radio exemplifies an imperfect approach to supporting Canadian culture across the digital and streaming music era, as well as the competing commercial and public interests in policymaking. We need to pay careful attention to the uneven power dynamics between major media companies and then the musicians and music lovers who live by the rules established through policymaking. Brian Fauteux, Associate Professor Popular Music and Media Studies, University of AlbertaThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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