The major American online platforms have already monopolized the film and popular music sectors. Today, it’s the turn of the performing arts to suffer the same fate. A multi-billion-dollar American company is buying up theaters, festivals and distribution channels in many countries.
It is also creating management agencies for popular (mainly American) artists and promoting them through its network of venues, thus monopolizing a large part of the entertainment market.
This expansion is taking place at the expense of local artists and the entire cultural ecosystem, whether in France, England, Colombia or Canada. The players in the Quebec (and Canadian) cultural industry are sounding the alarm about the lack of available funding, but governments claim to lack the means. Yet every year, millions of dollars leave the country to swell the profits of Live Nation and its U.S. subsidiaries. Much of this money comes from activities financed by public subsidies: funds from the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications, the Ministère du Tourisme, Heritage Canada and other government agencies.
Through an opaque set-up, these funds are channeled through NPOs controlled by for-profit companies, creating an indirect detour of public aid to foreign private interests. This aberration must stop. Live Nation’s control over Quebec festivals is particularly worrying. For example, the company now owns 49% of the Francos de Montréal, Canada’s biggest French-language festival, as well as the Festival de Jazz, the country’s largest. Several other major events on Quebec’s cultural landscape are also under its control, including Montréal en lumière, Osheaga, Ile Soniq and Lasso. The 49% threshold is not insignificant: if it were exceeded, these festivals would no longer be considered Canadian and Quebec-owned, and would become ineligible for public subsidies. However, this scheme enables Live Nation to benefit indirectly from government funds intended to support local culture, while at the same time exerting significant influence over these events.
In the current geopolitical context, where a supposedly friendly government is waging economic war on us, and governments say they are ready to “fight” to “protect our economy and our jobs”, it’s high time for the various ministries and funding agencies to review their criteria to ensure that the public money invested in culture stays entirely here, rather than going to the United States. While we are urged to buy Quebec and Canadian, and to read labels carefully to avoid American products, an American giant occupies such a place in our cultural milieu that it is currently impossible to bypass it.
Let’s be clear: we’re not calling for the disappearance of the major festivals, but we are asking that they be returned to full Quebec ownership if they wish to continue to benefit from public subsidies. After all, if a publicly-traded American company invests in these events, it’s because there are profits to be made. Why, then, fund them with public money? At a time when many Quebec museums, concert halls and festivals are reducing their programming or closing their doors, can we still afford to support a billion-dollar multinational like Live Nation?
It is imperative that a cultural enterprise receive public subsidies only if it is 100% Quebec or Canadian, with no foreign participation, and that it is a true NPO, owned by its members and independent of any foreign private enterprise.
While we denounce the omnipresence of American culture imposed by the major platforms, we are paradoxically funding a foreign multinational that is taking increasing control of the programming of our venues and festivals.
Live Nation is a steamroller for the cultural specificities of the countries in which they operate. They are flooding Quebec with foreign artists from their stable. The company is listed on the stock exchange and, in 2024 alone, generated revenues of 23.16 billion USD (over 30 billion CAD), up on the previous year. In addition to facing an anti-competitive practices lawsuit brought by the US Department of Justice and 39 states, its Ticketmaster division is under investigation in several countries, including the UK and the European Union.
Even in Quebec, the elephant in the box office is gigantic. For example, every time you book tickets for Place des Arts or the Grand Théâtre de Québec, two Crown corporations under the authority of Quebec’s Ministère de la Culture, you do so via an Archtics ticketing technology solution owned by Ticketmaster, a division of Live Nation. So, presumably, some of these dollars go directly to this American company, through licensing fees.
Here in Quebec, we have the power to take concrete action to enhance our culture and reinject public funds that are currently going directly into the coffers of an American entertainment company.
Instead of sending our public funds abroad, why not invest in local initiatives? Let’s stop valorizing companies that act as a sweetener for our culture. It’s time to be masters of our own home.
-Patrick Kearney, Managing Director, REFRAIN
-Tania Kontoyanni, President, Union des artistes
-François Colbert, Chair of Arts Management, HEC Montréal
