SPEAKING OUT

Eric Baptiste in conversation: SOCAN's new CEO lays out his plans for the future
by Rick MacMillan



Eric Baptiste recently joined SOCAN as the organization’s new CEO, succeeding André LeBel, who retired in May. This year, Baptiste completed a 12-year stint as director general of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) in Paris. Bringing together 225 authors’ rights collectives in 118 countries and representing 2.5 million creators and publishers from all creative repertoires (music, audiovisual, visual arts, photography, literature and drama), CISAC is an international organization promoting creators’ rights worldwide.

Beyond his role within CISAC, Baptiste has been deeply involved in broadcast media, cultural policy and new talent in music. He serves as general secretary of the board of Francophonie diffusion, and chairman of Radio NEO, a non-commercial FM radio network exclusively devoted to new musical talent. Baptiste is also the current chairman of ISAN-IA, the ISO-appointed agency managing the audiovisual works-identification standard ISAN.

Baptiste previously served as general manager of French public international radio RFI, and CEO of French commercial FM radio station 95.2 Paris. He has also headed several trade associations and inter-industry groups such as Musiques France Plus, the trade association Vive la Radio and the working group on relations between radio and the music sector, spearheading a report on digital convergence.

A graduate of the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris and the École nationale d’administration, Eric Baptiste received the French medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2006.

What were some of the determining factors in your decision to seek this position?
I’ve spent most of my career in leadership positions, either in the creative sector or in the broadcasting industry, often with an international perspective. After 12 years at the helm of CISAC, I felt it was time to move on and take up a new challenge. While I liked being in charge of an organization with a global reach, I thought that moving to SOCAN would be a great opportunity to come back to the more hands-on positions I had had in the broadcasting industry. Also, I know and like Canada as a forward-thinking, bicultural and friendly nation. If you add to that the fact that I knew — from personal contacts within the CISAC context — that SOCAN had a first-rate team, I did not hesitate that long!

What personal strengths do you feel you bring to this position from your background and experience?
I’m the result of an unusual mix. I’ve held executive positions in the radio industry, most notably as director general of Radio France International (its nearest equivalent, albeit a bit bigger, would be the World Service of the BBC). My tenure at RFI was marked by complete transformations of the competitive landscape — and with the team we successfully reinvented and re-engineered RFI.

I should also mention that I’m very proud, thanks to a decision I made in 1994, that RFI became the first French media outlet on the Internet. At the time, there were no browsers and no Web as we now know it, so we made content available on the Gopher service, at the time primarily for our audience in the U.S.

I’ve also held various non-executive chairmanships in radio and musical trade associations, giving me a front-row view of the interrelations among creators, performers, record companies, broadcasters (radio and TV stations) and the government.

I could not have joined CISAC at a more interesting time. We modernized the organization, raised its profile, reconnected to creators and helped our member societies develop technology-driven solutions to the challenges of the digital age. We also gained a better understanding of the current and future markets for creative works, enabling a better forecast of the worldwide trends in collections. And CISAC helped me work in a true multicultural fashion, thanks to the diversity of our membership and also of the staff that, over the years, joined CISAC from the four corners of the world.

What do you see as the major challenges ahead for PROs in general?
First I see strengths. We have earned the confidence of our members over the years — though, of course, we’ll need to work hard to keep it. We’re increasingly recognized by major users of works as “convenient” facilitators for access to creative works, as opposed to a world where rights management would be fragmented. We have enthusiastic and passionate staff.

Even more significant, I believe, is that we need to up our game. But in stark contrast to some other players in the music industry, we should not need to reinvent our whole business model. Performing-rights organizations have always been good at tracking the use of music in all places, big or small, collecting the appropriate sums and then distributing as accurately as possible the royalties to tens of thousands of rights holders.

Still, there are some pretty big issues ahead. We need to adapt to a world of mega, giga, peta transactions — downloads, streams, etc. — that generate little money, even for the companies operating the services. I’m confident SOCAN has robust plans in place to deal with this. Finally, the biggest challenge I see now is the changing attitude towards copyright. We are in danger of losing a second generation (the so-called Y-pay gen) if we’re not able to quickly engage in a true dialogue with them about the benefits of copyright and modernized collective management.

What are your immediate plans during the first three or four months at SOCAN?
I’ll need to get to know the organization much better. I plan to spend time with the staff, the board members and also the Canadian music industry as a whole. I already enjoyed meeting SOCAN members in Edmonton and Toronto at the end of April, and I look forward to meeting SOCAN’s customers, the licensees, both big and small. And then think about the future of SOCAN, together with the executive team and the board. SOCAN is currently in very good shape or has robust plans to address its current weaknesses, thanks to André LeBel’s steady hand over 10 years. This is a great asset!

What do you see as some of the priorities for SOCAN?
We need to make some decisions about ongoing re-engineering plans: implement the ones that have already been decided. We need to stay on top of the markets and anticipate solutions to future innovative — and probably disruptive — business models. Fortify the relationship with the relevant bodies of the federal government. And as a medium-sized, bicultural and very modern organization, we need to continue as an advocate for change and innovation in the rights societies’ world but also be an honest broker to further the cause of creativity and copyright worldwide.

During your role at CISAC were there any contributions made by SOCAN that stand out as particularly significant?
SOCAN has been a very active participant in CISAC. As a board member and for many years the chairman of the Governance Committee of the board, André LeBel has helped us deliver a better CISAC. The decision-making process is more reliable and transparent, and does not discriminate against any category of members (big or small, from any continent, from the music-rights world or the non-musical world).

SOCAN has also sent outstanding participants to many CISAC meetings and all have contributed to the improvement of output, including the ground-breaking Professional Rules and Binding Resolutions that should, over time, raise the quality of collective management system-wide. Members of SOCAN should be very proud of that and hopefully will continue to see concrete results in their distribution statements.


Uploaded Summer 2010

Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Send them to Rick MacMillan, Words & Music Corporate Editor, at wordsandmusic@socan.ca.

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