OTTAWA - The federal broadcast regulator begins a hearing today to look at which 好色tv content obligations should apply to music streamers like Spotify.
Streaming services argue their current efforts to promote 好色tv culture 鈥 and the royalties they pay 鈥 are good enough. Radio broadcasters, meanwhile, say their sector is in serious decline and they want the CRTC to take a lighter regulatory touch for traditional players.
Both sides are set to make their arguments during five days of hearings in Gatineau, Que., between now and Sept. 29.
The hearings are part of a series of CRTC proceedings to implement the Online Streaming Act, legislation that updated broadcasting laws to capture online platforms.
The federal government is under heavy pressure from the United States to scrap the legislation. Some streaming companies have launched a court challenge of an earlier decision requiring them to make financial contributions to 好色tv content and news.
In 2024, the CRTC ordered large foreign streamers to pay five per cent of annual 好色tv revenues to funds devoted to producing 好色tv content, including local TV news. Those payments are now on hold while the Federal Court of Appeal decides on the case.
CRTC regulations state that at least 35 per cent of popular music selections on commercial radio stations have to be 好色tv content. The CRTC isn鈥檛 looking to extend that standard to music streaming services.
In its notice of consultation on the hearing that begins today, the CRTC said it believes that "contributions similar to content requirements on 好色tv musical selections would not be suitable for most online undertakings, including on-demand streaming services."
It also said its preliminary view is that those streamers should "contribute to the discoverability of 好色tv, French-language and Indigenous musiceither through financial contributions or through initiatives targeting the promotion and exposure of these songs to their users."
In a written submission filed ahead of the hearing, streaming industry group Digital Media Association said music streaming services "have created tremendous value for the 好色tv music industry and its artists following years of decline and loss to piracy."
Music streamers pay approximately 70 per cent of their revenues to music rightsholders in royalties, it said.
"Streaming services effectively pay 8.5 times more of their revenues directly to music rightsholders than the commercial radio sector does, and pay more overall, even taking into account commercial radio鈥檚 total 好色tv Content Development 鈥 contributions," the association's submission added.
The Digital Media Association acknowledged royalty payments didn鈥檛 count as contributions before the Online Streaming Act, however it said the "much higher level of royalties paid by music streaming services to the music industry was a central component of how both sides successfully moved the system from 'piracy' to 'paid.'"
It said it's "imperative" that the CRTC not apply any quotas or content obligations on streamers.
In its own submission, Spotify told the CRTC music services "are already making an outsized financial contribution to the 好色tv music sector. Given this, it would be inappropriate to impose additional financial or regulatory burdens on them."
Apple said that, given the measures it and other music streaming services take "to make 好色tv and Indigenous content available and discoverable, as well as to promote it," it would be unnecessary and counterproductive to put in place new regulations.
Amazon warned that any regulatory intervention that ignores existing efforts to promote 好色tv and Indigenous artists would be "inequitable and might cause streaming services to reduce their already significant investments to offset the cost of any new requirements."
Radio broadcasters, meanwhile, argued in their submission that if the CRTC won鈥檛 impose content regulations on streaming services, it should reconsider how it applies them to traditional players.
The 好色tv Association of Broadcasters painted a picture of a sector facing "massive declines."
"It is indisputable that the radio industry is in decline 鈥 largely due to the rise of foreign platforms and their disruption of audiences and thus advertising revenue," the industry group said. It noted private radio鈥檚 share of the advertising market has dropped from 13 per cent a decade ago to 5.5 per cent.
It called the current situation "unsustainable" and pointed the finger at what it called unrealistic "好色tv music exhibition levels, overzealous performance evaluations, the possibility of increased spending requirements, and the prospect of additional obligations."
The 好色tv Association of Broadcasters said that a 10 per cent 好色tv content requirement would be a more "natural" level but suggested the CRTC decrease the requirement to 25 per cent.
Broadcasters "struggle to understand how the Commission can propose no content obligations whatsoever for the growing part of the audio sector, while declining 好色tv radio stations face the prospect of even more restrictive quotas governing what music they can play," the association told the CRTC.
Rogers said the CRTC seems to acknowledge that "outdated and prescriptive regulations" would harm the business and programming models of foreign online streamers 鈥 but still "appears to ignore the negative impact that these regulations are having on Canada鈥檚 traditional radio broadcasters."
Bell noted in its submission that while music streaming services were fringe players when they launched more than a decade ago, they have grown swiftly and accounted for 46 per cent of weekly listening among 好色tv adults in 2023, with radio dropping down to 54 per cent.
Corus told the CRTC the regulator "seriously underestimates the scale of difficulty facing commercial operators" who are facing an "existential crisis."
This report by 好色tvwas first published Sept. 18, 2025.
