Ex-Spotify & Universal Music Group Exec Jono Harrison On Music Streaming Quotas: 'Time For A Proper Conversation'

In light of declining Australian artist representation in the ARIA Charts and Hottest 100 results, there’s been a renewed call for local content quotas on radio and music streaming platforms. The intention is admirable, but the continued push for a quota on music streaming services is a distraction from more appropriate, albeit less convenient, ways to support the careers of Australian musicians. 

There is zero evidence to suggest a music streaming quota would work and no-one has actually proposed a model for how it would be applied. It’s time we had a proper conversation that takes an evidence-based approach, giving consideration to the full picture of how young people are discovering and engaging with music today. 

As an industry, we all want Australian music to succeed, but calling to apply traditional solutions to modern platforms, without evidence, isn’t the way to go about it. 

Where’s The Model? 

Unlike its Streaming Video on Demand (SVOD) compatriots, we haven’t seen a working proposal for quotas on music streaming services. Why not? Is it because those calling for it know that a quota contravenes the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA)? 

In November last year Tony Burke confirmed SVOD quotas had been postponed indefinitely, flagging major concerns they might be seen as a violation of AUSFTA. A recent parliamentary update from December 2024 points to analysis by the Computer and Communication Industries Association, which lays out the case for a breach: 

Article 16.4 of AUSFTA’s E-Commerce Chapter … prohibits preferential treatment for digital products based on the national origin of an “author, performer, producer, developer, or distributor.”

Article 11.9 of AUSFTA’s Investment Chapter (Performance Requirements) … prohibits measures designed to “achieve a given level or percentage of domestic content…”

It further states:

AUSFTA does allow the Australian government to enact content requirements inconsistent with these rules, but only in the case where a finding is made that the amount of Australian content in the market is “not readily available to Australian consumers.”

In reality, this condition is not remotely close to being met…

I’m not a lawyer, but it very much reads like any quota would be a non-starter, on SVOD or music streaming platforms. I’m also not a diplomat, so maybe the latest US tariff shenanigans have opened the door here? Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that there is zero evidence to suggest a music streaming quota would actually work, and no-one has proposed a working model for scrutiny. 

We need to have a quality conversation about this, the future of Australian music is too important. 

Music Streaming Is Not Radio (And It’s Not SVOD) 

Applying a quota to music streaming would be complicated to enact and enforce; it’s a fundamentally different listening experience to radio. For starters, they don’t operate pre-programmed playlists that must be consumed by all users – they are libraries of content: a wonderland of user choice. 

For a system based on user choice, applying a traditional solution to a modern, global, on-demand system is as useful as serving soup with a fork. 

You can’t force people to listen. 

You can mandate that 25% of the albums on the shelf at Sanity are Australian, but you can’t force someone to buy the new Selfish Sons record. SVOD platforms have the opposite issue to music streaming platforms who have 100 million+ songs to choose from, while Netflix Australia currently hosts around 6,500 titles. The proposed SVOD quota was based around mandated investment in creating new Australian content, to compete with overseas produced content. 

Music Discovery Holds The Key 

Australia’s young people spend a lot of time online, and are discovering music in more ways than ever before, among them; social, word of mouth, music streaming, movies, TV and radio. A Deloitte study has a neat way to show how different demographics in the US predominantly discover music: 

Once a discovery has been made young people overwhelmingly go (if they’re not there already) to their streaming platform of choice to listen on their own terms (IFPI 2023 Engaging With Music): 

Nearly two-thirds of 16-24-year-olds in the US are actively choosing the music they want to listen to on streaming services. The data shows that 63% of 16-24-year-olds regularly choose specific songs to listen to, 57% search for a specific artist and 59% choose to listen to their own playlists. 

And once they’re streaming, they’re more likely to go deeper into the artists catalog, follow them on socials and spend money on that artist. So if young people have likely already decided what they’ll listen to before opening a streaming app, how effective would a quota be? 

Where Would You Even Put It? 

16.6 million Australians use music streaming services and according to the latest ACMA data they have a strong preference for Spotify, with YouTube Music and Apple Music holding significant user bases. The younger you get, the more you preference Spotify for music streaming, with 79% of 18-24 year olds using Spotify on a weekly basis.  

Each of these platforms has a mix of Editorial playlists and Algorithmic playlists, and wherever possible, each platform personalises the listening experience for each user. It might seem obvious to whack a quota on the Editorial playlists, but while human curators choose the songs and their order, humans can still choose to skip, pause and shuffle their way around the platform. 

So how impactful would putting quotas on Editorial playlists actually be? 

Firstly, what if their Editorial playlists already feature 25% or 35% or more Australian artists? It would be dangerous to pat ourselves on the back if a quota makes no material difference to the makeup to the local content currently being featured on those playlists. 

And who’s actually listening to music on Editorial playlists anyway? According to Bloomberg, in the calendar year to Jan 2024, US music executives observed a 60% decrease in streams coming from flagship Spotify Editorial playlists like Rapcaviar and MINT. 

I take calls regularly from Australian artist managers and music marketers who lament the decreasing impact of Editorial playlists on Spotify. 

Spotify’s shift to personalisation is no secret, but it's not clear how many streams are coming from Personalised surfaces versus Editorial playlists, or how that ratio has shifted over time. But the reality is clear, personalisation is all around us; on social, gaming, video, music streaming and search. 

How Do You Put A Quota On Algorithms? 

The question everyone is eagerly awaiting an answer to. How do you do it? 

Spotify operates thousands of algorithms that make up the user experience, each for different contexts, so where do you even start? Do you preference local artists in search results? Do you mandate more Australian songs in personalised mood playlists? Are they contemporary or catalog songs?

How does the platform optimise for the user experience when it’s drawing from a smaller pool of Australian songs? What happens if other countries apply their own local content quotas? Are we really going to help new Australian artists break through the noise by tinkering with lean-back listening experiences? Will any of this make someone fall in love with Australian music? What made you fall in love with your favourite artist anyway? 

Forcing Australian content into Algorithmic or Editorial playlists on any music streaming platform, without user engagement risks backfiring: if listeners frequently skip locally mandated tracks, the platforms can learn that these songs are not resonating, making it even harder for Australian artists to gain traction. 

I sincerely challenge anyone to come up with an impactful working model for a music streaming quota, it’s not an enviable task, but also not a necessary one because it misses the point entirely. We have to meet consumers where they are discovering music. 

We’re On The Global Stage Now

Love them and/or hate them, global platforms like Amazon, Apple, Google, META, Spotify and TikTok have opened up Australian music to the global marketplace. Some Australian artists have benefited greatly from that; Dom Dolla is playing Tomorrowland, Royel Otis are touring extensively in the US, Tones And I enjoyed breakout success overseas, and lesser-known bands like Good Morning have booked overseas shows based off the reach that streaming platforms have given them. 

I couldn’t find data from other platforms, but Spotify says that, globally in 2023, Australian artists were discovered by first-time listeners 2.7 billion times. 2.7 billion?! That number deserves some scrutiny, but any way you cut it, this kind of discovery at scale simply couldn’t happen without access to the global marketplace. 

At the same time, Australian artists now, domestically, are contending with global competition. And this is for all types of content, not just music. 

In sport we’ve seen a huge increase in interest in NBA and NFL, with teams from those leagues traveling to Australia soon, and Disney eyeing off their broadcast rights for our region. At the same time the NRL is hitting attendance records, they played in Las Vegas for a second time and are looking to sell their broadcast rights to a global streaming platform. It goes both ways. 

We’re seeing the globalisation of culture before our eyes. If the export opportunity is huge, then the import challenge is just as big. 

Time For A Proper Conversation

We need to have a serious, high-quality conversation to understand the problem and to identify solutions. Together. Overly simplistic solutions for one part of the question are not going to solve it. 

We, as an industry, want more people around the world to discover, listen, love, share, buy, cry over — and, ultimately, fall in love with — Australian music. Then together we have to embrace this new world and work out how to support our local artists in Australia, not just offshore. 

One observation that I would make is that in a time of high global competition, there is less investment in artist development. We’re going to collectively need to put more effort and more resources than ever before. 

The establishment of Music Australia has built the scaffolding, with money flowing to Australian music projects, and commitments from triple j and HIT to play more local content, more often, is a great start. But we’re going to need more research, investment, collaboration, education and time. And how much time do we really have? 

Not enough to waste on the continued call for a music streaming quota.