SOCAN CEO Jennifer Brown, along with several of our Vice Presidents and department heads, addressed more than 200 music publishers at two separate online Town Hall meetings, for Anglophones on Apr. 8 2025, and Francophones on Apr. 10, 2025. During these gatherings, we provided updates on our finances, our work maximizing royalties, our Membership department activities, advocacy, and improvements to data and technology. We also answered questions.
Brown reported that in 2024, SOCAN reached new record revenues of $559 million, and new record distributions of $512 million. She discussed how SOCAN is celebrating its 100th Anniversary in 2025; how SOCAN, our members, and our colleague organizations get things done by working together; and how AI is having a significant impact on songwriters and screen composers, which is why SOCAN is advocating about fairness for our members in AI federal government policy.
SOCAN Chief Membership Officer Jean-Christian Céré said that we’re not only looking at SOCAN’s past 100 years, but looking forward to the next 100. He mentioned an upcoming “SOCAN 100” campaign; talked about welcoming, in 2024, new SOCAN Director of Member Operations, James Leacock, and two new SOCAN Ambassadors, Robert Kraft in L.A. and Carleton Stone on the East Coast; and hailed SOCAN Academy, our new online learning platform for members.
SOCAN Director, Publisher Relations, Tanya Van Luven talked about addressing music publishers’ concerns with analytics, transparency, innovation, and communications, the latter via our publisher newsletter.
Connor Chapman, SOCAN Director of International Relations, talked about SOCAN moving toward monthly distributions (instead of the current quarterly ones), starting with concert distributions for major live performances. This will eventually be extended to all concerts, and is aimed at reducing the time between the member’s performance and the payment of their royalty for it. Chapman said publishers can help by offering advance notice of tours, and quick post-tour submission of set lists.
Cameron Kennedy, SOCAN Vice President, Creative and Member Relations, invited publishers to take advantage of the SOCAN L.A. and Nashville Houses for their writers, and said the new L.A. House includes a studio to record demos. He mentioned publisher recognition in our SOCAN No. 1 Song Awards and annual SOCAN Awards, as well as our song camps and “SOCAN Connection” events.
Kit Wheeler, SOCAN Vice President of Royalty Collections, said that licensing agreements are reviewed before renewal every three years, allowing us to negotiate better royalty rates. She cited 139 new digital licensing accounts and 1,128 new physical licensing accounts added in 2024, growing revenue.
Martin Lavallée, SOCAN’s Head of Reproduction Rights, talked about pursuing higher royalty rates from on-screen digital service providers like Netflix, AppleTV+, and Crave, for audiovisual post-sync reproduction rights. No mandated rate has been established yet, so SOCAN is already advocating for members with the Copyright Board of Canada.
SOCAN Chief Financial Officer Rob Bennett, in addition to citing our new record revenues and distributions, said that domestic revenue was up 4.2 percent, international revenue was up 14.9 percent, and our management expense ratio was only 12 percent. Bennett also mentioned that upward trends are foreseen for 2025, and that SOCAN is closely monitoring the tariff situation with the U.S., and the vagaries of AI – and will adjust our forecasts accordingly.
Leslie Craig, SOCAN’s Vice President of Royalty Services, spoke about the current state of our new Spanish Point matching technology. She said that heavy user testing, and completing every facet of the new tech, has delayed launch of its full use from November 2025 to February 2026. Among the positive developments: the tech is intuitive and easy-to-use; the processing speeds are fast; information is more reliable because it’s a single-source platform; managing duplicates is being done more efficiently, at the point of ingestion; there’s more granular content in member statements; and we’re not waiting for a 100% share picture to distribute royalties. Craig added that with the data migration, some older catalogue works will be housed at a data storage location – but SOCAN will provide publishers with a list of their works, and the publishers can then submit any that are missing.
James Leacock, SOCAN’s new Director of Member Operations, discussed coming improvements in resolving cases, as requested by members via a new submission process in the new member portal. He added that members will be able to exchange comments and info with SOCAN staff and members via the portal, which allows us to better track and monitor cases. He also mentioned a new API for live concert submissions, which we’re planning to integrate into the new tech.
Thanks to all of our music publishers who attended the events!