Can Canadian songwriters survive?

As their income plummets to poverty levels, many find themselves making tough choices

- NICK KREWEN

Toronto composer Arun Chaturvedi, president of the Songwriters Association of Canada, says that friends and colleagues are leaving the music business because they can't make ends meet.

What do the Beluga whale, the wolverine and the full-time Canadian songwriter have in common?

They’re all on the endangered species list.

While humans may be contributing to the extinction of the first two, it appears that for the third, digital streaming is hastening the demise of the profession responsible for creating the music industry’s very lifeblood.

U.K.-based MIDiA Research has just published a report called “Songwriters Take the Stage / A New Playbook for a New Era” that pretty much confirmed the new reality that has taken hold since 2017, when streaming overtook physical sales of music.

Quite simply, songwriter income has plummeted to poverty levels.

Of the 300-plus tunesmiths surveyed by MIDiA, only 10 per cent earned more than $30,000 (U.S.) yearly, and 67 per cent said that their greatest challenge was the “lack of meaningful streaming income.”

The percentage of respondents who received between $0 and $1,000 for their efforts: 54.

How is the situation in Canada?

Toronto-based Arun Chaturvedi, a composer whose credits include such U.S. shows as “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” and “General Hospital,” and who serves as president of the Songwriters Association of Canada, says it’s not pretty.

“I see people leaving the business, that’s for sure,” Chaturvedi said in an interview.

“All my friends, colleagues, members of the SAC, are having a hard time making ends meet.”

What once was considered a business of pennies now deals with tiny fractions of a cent.