East Coast Music Association Announces Support for $5 Million MAPL!e Grant Fund
The East Coast Music Association announced their support for the MAPL!e Grant. The grant will primarily feature FREE access to the !earshot Digital Music Distribution System, (“!earshot Distro”) by the National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCRA/ANREC) and other areas that support under-represented artists and musicians in Canada, related to radio.
“Music and radio need each other to succeed,” said Barry Rooke, Executive Director of NCRA. “We know live music has been hard hit by the pandemic and funding distribution will help musicians reach new audiences while building a new platform.”
The NCRA/ANREC has secured agreements with the majority of national and provincial music associations in the country and is offering access to grants between November 16th and March 31st, 2021 to upload content to the !earshot Distro system. Tens of thousands of musicians, artists and labels across Canada will have a new, environmentally friendly way to distribute their music to stations. Across the participating associations, this totals around $5 million worth of funding.
“We are proud to be supporting this new system so that our members can more easily be discovered and get their music heard from a national audience through community radio stations,” said Andy McLean, Chief Executive Officer. “This is especially needed now, when musicians have been deeply impacted by the economic downturn.”
The music sector faces challenges including loss of live venues and decline of local print publications which were key to seeking out our new music and features of artists. Local and diverse content can get lost online, which motivated the effort to support under-represented artists. !earshot-Distro has the benefits of carbon reduction with no packaging or transport waste, as well as expanded access to content online without taking up increasingly expensive storage space at stations.
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About the NCRA/ANREC:
The National Campus and Community Radio Association/L'Association nationale des radios étudiantes et communautaires (“NCRA/ANREC”) is a not-for-profit national association working to recognize, support, and encourage volunteer-based, non-profit, public-access campus, community and native radio broadcasters in Canada. We provide advice and advocacy for individual campus and community (“c/c”) stations and conduct lobbying and policy development initiatives with a view to advancing the role and increasing the effectiveness of our sector. Our goals are to ensure stability and support for individual stations and to promote the long-term growth and effectiveness of the sector. The NCRA/ANREC currently has 113 member stations.
