CBC Music

CBC Music

Type	Public
Founded	2012
Area served	Canada
Industry	Music
Owner	Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Website	music.cbc.ca
Registration	Optional
Available in	English
Current status	Active

CBC Music is a digital music service, launched by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on February 13, 2012.^[1] The service provides online streaming of 53 web radio services, including the existing radio networks CBC Radio 2 and CBC Radio 3 and 47 streams devoted to particular genres of music.^[1] Some of the genre webstreams were already provided by Radio 2 or Radio 3, while others were new offerings at the 2012 launch.

A similar site, espace.mu, is also offered by the CBC's French radio division, Société Radio-Canada. On June 5, 2013, Radio-Canada announced a rebranding plan, under which the latter site would become known initially as ICI.mu.

History

The service was launched shortly after the CBC reached a music licensing deal with the AVLA in January 2012.^[2] The site is one of the first large-scale ventures into online broadcasting to be available in Canada since the launch of Iceberg Radio in 1997; as of CBC Music's launch, popular international ventures such as Pandora remain unavailable to Canadian consumers.^[3]

Shortly after the service's launch, Stingray Digital, the owner of the cable audio service Galaxie, filed a complaint with the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, alleging that the CBC's access to government funding gave it an unfair competitive advantage over private for-profit services.^[4] Noting that the CBC pays the same copyright royalties to SOCAN as the competing services and that it places a much greater emphasis on Canadian content than the commercial services, the CRTC dismissed the complaint in August 2012.^[4]

In May 2013, the service sponsored the first CBC Music Festival.^[5] Staged at Ontario Place's Echo Beach stage, artists on the bill included Sam Roberts, Of Monsters and Men, Kathleen Edwards, Sloan, Corb Lund and the Hurtin' Albertans, Half Moon Run, Jarvis Church, Elisapie Isaac, Aidan Knight, Kae Sun and Shakura S'Aida.

Rebranding (Espace.mu)

On June 5, 2013, it was announced that as part of a plan to recreate Radio-Canada,^[6] Radio-Canada's media outlets would be re-launched around the brand "ICI" ("here" or "this is"), a term that has been used in conjunction with Radio-Canada for over 75 years.^[7] The term, ICI, would act as a common denominator for all of Radio-Canada’s platforms, which was felt as important for remaining competitive in today’s media industry.^[8] Under this rebranding, Espace.mu will be renamed ICI.mu at a date to be announced.^[9][10] The site is now called ICIMusique.ca^[11]

Content

The music streams are organized into various music communities, based on the existing community networking model developed by CBC Radio 3, whereby fans and genre specialists can participate in blogging and forum discussion about genre news and artists.

At present, most of the genre streams are unhosted, although one rock stream is hosted by CBC Radio personality Vish Khanna.

In addition, the site also serves as a portal to the websites of Q and The Strombo Show, two of the most popular music-related shows on CBC Radio's terrestrial services, and some artists' music and concert performances may also be streamed on demand.^[12]

In December 2013, the site also launched the first issue of CBC Music Magazine, an e-magazine distributed in both iOS and Android formats.^[13]

Platforms

In addition to the website, the service is also available as a smartphone application for Android, iPhones, iPads and BlackBerry.^[2]

Streams

Live Radio

• CBC Radio 2 - Atlantic Time Zone
• CBC Radio 2 - Eastern Time Zone
• CBC Radio 2 - Central Time Zone
• CBC Radio 2 - Mountain Time Zone
• CBC Radio 2 - Pacific Time Zone
• CBC Radio 3
• Sonica - An adult album alternative stream which launched in 2013, and is simulcast on Sirius XM Radio channel 171, where it replaced Bande à part following that service's discontinuation.

Genre

• Seasonal/Special Formats 1 - A stream which rotates through a series of short term specialty formats, most commonly formatted around a theme such as a prominent and influential artist, a broad selection of artists from a particular Canadian region, or another musical topic. This stream debuted as Complete Cohen, featuring the songs of Leonard Cohen in both the Cohen originals and cover versions by other artists. Subsequent formats have included Complete Blue Rodeo, featuring the songs of Blue Rodeo; Hamilton Rocks, featuring artists from Hamilton, Ontario; and Drummers Who Sing.
• Seasonal/Special Formats 2
• New Wave (formerly Jian's New Wave)
• Kids CBC
• Nesrallah's Tempo (formerly Radio 2 Classical)
• Essential Classics
• Operatic - Opera recordings and performances.
• Baroque - Baroque music
• Modern Masters
• Orchestral
• Piano
• Chamber
• CBC Records - Classical music recordings which have been released on CBC Records.
• Canadian Composers
• Choral
• Classical Serenity
• Radio 2 Jazz
• Jazz Masters
• Jazz Songbook
• Jazz Canada
• Smooth Jazz
• Canadian Songwriters
• Singer-Songwriters
• Adult Alternative - adult album alternative music
• Canadian Roots
• World - world music
• Bollywood
• Indie - indie rock and indie pop music
• Rock - modern rock, hosted by Vish Khanna
• Rock Classics - classic rock hits
• Metal - hard rock and heavy metal songs
• Pop 40 - contemporary hit radio
• Adult Pop - adult contemporary hits
• Jukebox Favourites
• The 70s - Hits of the 1970s
• The 80s - Hits of the 1980s
• The 90s - Hits of the 1990s
• Blues - blues music
• Blues Classics
• R&B / Soul - R&B/soul hits
• Classic Soul / R&B
• Hip-Hop - Hip hop hits
• Country - country music hits
• Alternative Country - alternative country
• Country Classics
• Aboriginal - First Nations music
• Electronic - electronic music
• Ambient Lounge - ambient music
• EDM

References

External links

• CBC Music
• espace.mu