TIME TO END THE RADIO SILENCE

Ottawa must do more to support local musical artists, writes Kevin Bourne.

Last week, the artists were announced for Season 2 of CTV’s hit show The Launch. The show was created to produce instant No. 1 hits and instant stars after years of seeing other music talent shows fail to actually launch their talent, and it has succeeded. So far, this made-in-Canada format already has produced a viable star act and hit song, unlike American shows such as The Voice.

The stars from Season 1 were Ottawa and Perth, Ont.’s Elijah Woods x Jamie Fine. Their hit song, Ain’t Easy, has garnered 342 million radio audience impressions to date, as well as a number of other accolades. They went on to win the iHeartRadio MMVA for Best New Canadian Artist.

After hearing the news that Ottawa’s Vi and Michelle Treacy would be among the 30 artists appearing on the show in Season 2, I was excited at the prospects for the capital. Could another Ottawa win mean the capital finally gets on the music map?

Then came the frustration. If an artist such as Vi wins, she’ll finally get played on commercial radio in her own city; all because of a Toronto co-sign.

This makes me ask: Why does it take an appearance on The Launch for local artists to be considered good enough to be on Ottawa radio stations? How long will we take our cues from Toronto when it comes to which of our artists are ready to sit at the adult table?

Vi already had 1.5 million streams on her music before The Launch. Why wasn’t she already playing on commercial radio in Ottawa? (I’m not counting a segment on CBC). Obviously, artists such as Elijah Woods x Jamie Fine, Vi and Michelle Treacy had commercial appeal already or else they wouldn’t have been picked to be on the show in the first place.

Outside of The Launch, City Fidelia, who grew up in the Chinatown neighbourhood and had one million Spotify streams in 2018 alone, recently saw his single, Snakes, played at a Toronto Raptors game and on leading New York hip-hop station Hot 97. Why isn’t he being played regularly on commercial radio in Ottawa? The same can be said of SVLM, Hevve, Maurice Moore, JDYN, Jeff Sanon and a few other artists.

This goes back to the age-old knock on the city: “Ottawa doesn’t support its talent until they get recognition outside of the city.” As a Toronto native, I’ve heard longtime residents of the capital recall how Ottawa didn’t really celebrate Alanis Morrisette until she gained recognition from outside of the city.

Yes, there has been some change. Bluesfest continues to be a great platform for local artists, LiVE 88.5 FM recently added local group DRAE to its prime-time rotation, and CBC Radio interviews and plays music from local artists — but things haven’t changed enough.

Commercial media plays a vital role in the professionalization of artists. In Toronto, we saw the role Flow 93.5 played in helping artists such as Kardinal Offishall and Choclair build a fan base and gain mainstream appeal in their own city.

If Ottawa is going to grow into a proper music city, we need to learn to launch our own talent. For now, there are a number of artists caught in a no man’s land: too big for college media but not yet recognized by commercial media.

The goal here isn’t to point fingers at our commercial media and other players in local music; I’m one of them. But at some point we have to get frustrated that a lot of our best artists still feel they need to leave to gain commercial recognition.

So, as we celebrate the latest crop of artists representing Ottawa on The Launch, we should consider whether they’re there because of Ottawa or despite Ottawa. Ottawa-based Kevin Bourne is the editor of SHIFTER Magazine. The six-episode second season of The Launch kicks off Wednesday, Jan. 30 at 8 p.m. ET/PT in super simulcast on CTV, VRAK, and the CTV app.