APEM 2025 Music & Technology Summit

PHOTO GALLERY BELOW

The Music & Technology Summit presented by APEM (the Association des professionnels de l’édition musicale) – gathering its members, and various stakeholders of the Québec music industry – has now become a springtime tradition. The eighth edition of the summit was held March 19, 2025, at Montréal’s Phi Centre. Freelance journalist Philippe Papineau hosted an afternoon of presentations, discussions, and reflections aimed at providing music publishers and other music professionals with the tools they need to make the most of technology.

APEM Executive Director Jérôme Payette began with an overview of the most recent statistics on the consumption of Québec music, emphasizing its small market share. Patrick Deslauriers then presented the highlights of three APEM research projects aimed at measuring the showcasing and recommendation of Canadian, Québecois, and Francophone music – delievered  in the context of the CRTC and the Government of Québec soon considering the regulations that will apply to online music services. Here too, the observation is that there is very little Québec music in the most popular playlists on the main online music platforms.

Later, Jacynthe Plamondon-Émond (InTempo) and Shanti Loiselle (Meilleures pratiques) presented the broad outline of their recommendations with regards to the data management practices essential to ensure better discoverability of Québec music, and to maximize the development and income derived from online music consumption.

The last panel of the afternoon tackled the issue of how local music can be showcased online in a sustainable way. David Bussières (musiqc.ca), Catalina Briceno (Université du Québec à Montréal) and Nicolas Pelletier (Qobuz) shared ideas and possible solutions to promote Québec music online, at a time when a grassroots movement in favour of consuming local is gaining momentum.

David Bussières emphasized the success of the MUSIQC initiative, while expressing his disappointment that Québec’s Ministry of Culture still hasn’t committed to providing ongoing funding for this project, dedicated to the promotion and showcasing of Francophone music. He also mentioned the L’Adisq à l’école initiative as an example of the essential role that the school system can play in stimulating the interest of younger generations in Québec music.

Catalina Briceno, professor at UQAM’s École des médias, addresses the digital transition of the media and cultural industries in her research. She explained that while a lot has been done on the music on offer, and the notion of discoverability in recent years, she believes the next step is to work on the influence that can be exerted on the musical choices of consumers. She suggested that it’s time to start discussing “desirability.” “Québec has a volume problem,” said Briceno. “We have to position ourselves as the organizers of this offering. It took time, because we wrongly believed it was the platforms’ job to do so, and they didn’t do it. Now, it s incumbent on Québec’s musical ecosystem to take care of it.”  She also called for the appropriation of the public sphere for the advancement of local music, since the vast majority of the available space online has been monopolized by the major global platforms.

Finally, Nicolas Pelletier presented Qobuz, a French music streaming and downloading platform that relies on human curation rather than algorithms. It also deploys an international editorial strategy with regional branches, including a team in Québec led by Pelletier – which is working to promote the recommendation of local music, while developing it through Qobuz’s other international regional branches. This strategy seems to be working: according to the figures he shared, local artists account for 28% of total plays on Qobuz, compared with only 7.5% for its main competitors.

The Music and Technology 2025 Summit – financially supported by Musicaction, and annually by SODEC and SOCAN – concluded with a networking cocktail party.