In a world ruled by screens, sound culture is growing today at dizzying rates. Recorded music, music festivals, the unstoppable phenomenon of podcasts, audiobooks. A sector, that of audio, in full expansion, but weighed down in Spain by business atomization and by the difficulty of obtaining financing: Spanish music festivals obtain financing from the large international ticketing companies instead of obtaining that of local banks. For this reason, in the midst of a new technological revolution, the Central Government is launching a plan with which it hopes to achieve a turning point for the Spanish audio sector: the new Space, which wants to enhance it, internationalize it and allow a better financing thanks to 160 million euros in credits from European recovery funds.
“Creative industries have a huge impact on society, but we have very little tradition of funding, both by financial institutions and private investment, in the cultural sector. In contrast, Anglo-Saxon countries have a long tradition of financing these industries. And indeed, some of the local industry is now changing hands with international funding. The funds of the Espai Àudio will help to change this tradition and will visualize that it is possible to finance the cultural industries that use audio for their growth and projection”, summed up Jordi Herreruela, director of the Cruïlla festival and president of the Fundació Barcelona Music Lab when the presentation ceremony of the new Espai Àudio ended, which brought the Vice-President of the Central Government, Nadia Calviño, and the Minister of Culture to a concert hall in Madrid, Sala Tempo, this week. Miquel Iceta
An event organized by the State Coordinator of Private Live Music Rooms attended by a large representation of the sector and in which the president of EsMúsica, the Spanish Music Federation, Kin Martínez, pointed out that the Espai Audio, which is part of the strategic project of the New Language Economy commanded by Cristina Gallach, means the “recognition by the Central Executive that we are a strategic sector of the first order, we generate a very important transversal economy and the the music industry deserves the same treatment as cinema or audiovisual in terms of tax benefits”.
In this sense, Calviño pointed out that with the Espai Àudio “we want more industry, to strengthen the industries of the environment, to support the sector and promote its integration. Encourage the production of sound content. Contribute to mobilizing private investment. A better regulatory framework. And the training, the training, the professionalization of this sector in which you are all more or less self-taught”. It is, he concluded, “to increase and take advantage of our linguistic, technological and cultural potential, to put Spanish on the train of the digital revolution. For the first time in our history we are well placed. Spain has the necessary assets to succeed in this digital revolution”. From the Federation of Publishers Guilds, its president, Daniel Fernández, who attended the Sala Tempo, welcomed the fact that the plan includes the audiobook, which will allow investing in and improving a product that, he stressed, has “quickly placed above 5% in the national market”.
