Thank you. Good afternoon.
I'm going to read a bit of prepared material just because there are some thoughts that I don't want to miss. I'm also an artist and a producer, but I am also a partner in a record label, an independent Canadian record label. Perhaps I can throw some light on another side of this argument for not eliminating diversity programs from the council. I will speak mainly to the specialized music program.
Our label, Borealis Records, was founded in 1996 to fill a void that existed in the Canadian recording business, namely, a company that would manufacture and distribute an all-Canadian catalogue of folk roots artists. At that point there was no such company, despite a growing number of musicians and songwriters. They were doing their best to eke out a living by playing and recording their music. Our goal is twofold. It was and is twofold. It's to give these musicians an outlet for their recordings, while at the same time negotiating fair artist contracts that allow the creators of this music to own and maintain their own music. In other words, we don't take publishing like many record labels do.
Above and beyond our contractual obligations to tour, we're also active in helping our artists find other kinds of representations, such as agents, managers, overseas contacts, etc. To date, we have some 50 artists and approximately 100 recordings in the catalogue.
I'd just like to point this out because we set out to work this way in the mid-1990s, and we've been a bit of a model for some other companies that have come along--not to toot our horn, but that's the reality.
The artist provides us with a finished master recording for an agreed-upon term, usually five years. We manufacture and distribute the recording through worldwide distributors, both physical and digital--i.e., iTunes or Amazon.com, as well as bricks-and-mortar record stores around the world. We send promotional copies to some 900 media outlets in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Europe, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. We promote and buy advertisements in support of our recordings in the above-named territories and provide tour support with publicity and more advertisements in local areas where our acts are gigging.
Unlike most record labels, we do not take a piece of the artist's publishing royalties. We feel these royalties belong to the artist or the creator. We're able to make these arrangements work for us due to the fact that we don't underwrite the cost of recordings. In other words, we don't pay for the studio, the musicians, etc. We license a finished product from an artist or a group.
Depending on an arrangement, depending on the number of musicians, depending on the recording facility, as these people will be able to easily tell you, recordings can go anywhere from $10,000 to $15,000 to $20,000 to $25,000 for a folk-roots style of recording. If we were to take those costs on as a company, we would have been out of business ten years ago, easily. It just wouldn't have worked.
The music under the folk-roots umbrella is pretty wide-ranging and diverse. There's an age-old argument: what is folk music? I wouldn't even try to begin to tell you what it is. The music in our catalogues is anything from traditional fiddle tunes from Newfoundland, Cape Breton, and Quebec, to singer-songwriters across the country, to Balkan music, etc. It's a pretty wide scope of music.
The one thing I want to say about folk and roots music is that in one way or another the music represents diverse cultural traditions across the country. They're not formulaic love ditties that you hear on pop radio, and that's why we're not on pop radio. That's why none of us here are on pop radio. It's because we don't compose pop music, which is for the most part formulaic. There are formulas for putting it together. There's a way to make it sound like the last Britney Spears album, and maybe you'll have a chance of getting on CHUM, or whatever the station is these days.
It's not disposable music, I think that's what's so important to point out here. That's what is understood by the Canada Council; they're not dealing with disposable music.
The specialized music sound recording program does not have criteria that say this music has to appeal to a mass audience. Instead, the music is judged on its inherent artistic merits, a realistic budget, and the ability of the production team to complete a professional product. And finally, persons known and respected in their individual fields of music carry out the judging. I'm sure you heard all of this from Gary Cristall before I was here.
To us, by moving the funding for specialized music to FACTOR and MUSICACTION, I feel there is a great risk of the criteria changing to more reflect the needs of the large commercial media companies and the pop music business. Both FACTOR and MUSICACTION are, after all, largely funded by private broadcast interests. That’s okay, but that’s what they are. I have taken part in FACTOR juries, and it is stated implicitly that we should take into account the ability of the project to be commercially viable. This is understandable, as the FACTOR program is considered a loan, and it's not an outright grant. Therefore they are operating on a loan system, where they like to see a dollar back from each recording sold, and therefore are working within a market system, etc.
And please understand, I don't hate pop music. I love a lot of pop music. However, today it is not the same business model that gave us Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, or Neil Young. Today, the pop music business is essentially run by accountants and not by artists and repertoire people. It’s basically run as a nuts-and-bolts widget business. The possibility of challenging new music being produced by these conglomerates is pretty small.
The Canadian sound recording industry is dominated by the four multinational record companies, which control anywhere from 80% to 90% of the Canadian music market. These are the companies that feed commercial radio. On the other hand, Canadian-controlled firms release about 90% of Canadian-content recordings, while foreign-controlled companies release about 10% of Canadian content. I think that’s an important step for everybody to understand.
According to the Department of Canadian Heritage, the three main objectives of the Canadian sound recording policy are:
To enhance Canadians' access to a diverse range of Canadian music choices through existing and emerging media; To increase the opportunities available for Canadian music artists and cultural entrepreneurs to make a significant and lasting contribution to Canadian cultural expression; and To ensure that Canadian music artists and entrepreneurs have the skills, know-how and tools to succeed in a global and digital environment.
Certainly I do not see where the first two of these objectives will be easily met by moving this program to FACTOR and MUSICACTION. I submit that a diverse range of Canadian voices and stories and the ability to make a lasting contribution to Canadian cultural expression by artists, whether by themselves or through companies such as ours, will be severely eroded with the loss of this program at the council.
In the end, I think it is a choice between supporting our cultural identity through music or adding funds to commercial interests with only the bottom line in mind. That’s the scary part to me.
So in closing, I would just say that the next time you reach into your wallet and pull out a $20 bill, you might read on the back these words from Gabrielle Roy: "Could we ever know each other in the slightest without the arts?"
Thanks.