Thank you, Chair.
My name is Jason Kee. I'm public policy and government relations counsel at Google Canada.
We appreciate the opportunity to participate in your study of remuneration models for artists in creative industries.
As Google, our approach to remuneration and revenue is a partnership model. In this model, creators—such as publishers, artists, producers or app developers—create and supply the content while we provide distribution and monetization, including technical infrastructure, sales teams, transaction and payment systems, and business support, etc. We then share in the resulting revenue, with the majority of the revenue going to the creator every single time. Under this partnership model, we only earn revenue when our partners earn revenue, so it is in our interest to ensure that our partners are successful.
Google offers a wide variety of platforms for different types of creators. We offer publishers advertising platforms that allow them to monetize their content by hosting ads on their sites and apps, and share in that revenue.
Google Play, our online store, provides a massive global audience for developers and other content partners, with developers sharing in 70% or more of the revenue. Google Play Movies & TV offers shows or movies for rental or purchase, while Google Play Music offers unlimited ad-free access to over 40 million songs for a monthly fee, or through a more limited ad-supported tier. These are each fully licensed services that remit royalties to rights holders in accordance with licensing agreements and provide a significant source of revenue to our content partners.
Last is YouTube, Google's global online video platform. YouTube has over 1.9 billion monthly logged-in users, and over a billion hours of video are watched each and every day. At YouTube, our mission is to give everyone a voice and show them the world. This is the true power of YouTube—that with just a camera and an Internet connection, anyone of any age from any walk of life can participate, have a voice and build a global audience.
And they do. Over 400 hours of video content are uploaded to YouTube every single minute, making it one of the largest living collections of human culture ever assembled. These uploads represent virtually every imaginable type of video content, from home videos and user-generated content to high-end film and television content. Through platforms like ours, more people around the world are able to think of themselves as authors, artists and creators.
YouTube is also a “lean-in” interactive experience, where creators interact directly with a community of engaged and passionate fans who share and comment and contribute. This personal, direct connection that YouTube creators share with their fans makes them more authentic and relatable and distinguishes YouTube from other platforms.
Canada has a very large and vibrant YouTube creator community that producers high-quality and engaging content that is being enjoyed in high numbers, both domestically and globally. Canada is one of the top exporters of content on YouTube. Globally, on average, 50% of a creator's watchtime comes from outside their own country, but for Canadian creators, over 90% of watch time comes from outside of Canada. This is higher than any other country on the platform, and demonstrates that we actually produce very exportable content.
In the past year, Canadian channels have seen their watchtime grow 45%, and channels making six figures or more in revenue are up 24% over last year. Canadian success stories are numerous and many of these creators have grown sufficiently large and sophisticated to employ teams of business managers, researchers, camera operators, editors and others, effectively becoming small production studios.
Canada also has a large community of up-and-coming creators—YouTube's creative middle class—including a range of Quebec creators, who predominantly produce French-language content that performs very well in Quebec and French-language markets.
Canadian broadcasters and producers are increasingly partnering with YouTube and leveraging the platform to reach new international audiences. We partnered with the Canada Media Fund on Encore+, a YouTube channel featuring classic Canadian content that is no longer aired, such as The Littlest Hobo and Wayne and Shuster. We've provided live streaming services for major events, including the last Tragically Hip concert, The JUNO Awards,The Canadian Screen Awards, and APTN's Indigenous Day Live, among others, extending the reach of these Canadian moments. We work closely with these partners to help them maximize their opportunities on the platform.