NAICS 5122Industry group · 4-digitnational market1 market record

Sound recording industries

SoftwarePodcast Hosting & Monetisation Platforms

This industry group comprises establishments primarily engaged in producing and distributing music recordings, publishing music, or providing sound recording and related services. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 369
Under 10 employeesA: 86%
Establishments · USA: 4,458
Employment · USA: 25,700
Payroll · USA: $3.0B

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–425068%

5–96919%

10–19339%

20–4982%

50–9962%

100–19910%

200–49921%

500+0—

Of 369 Canadian establishments with employees, 86% have fewer than ten — an industry of very small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario16244%

Quebec9526%

British Columbia6618%

Alberta267%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Information, US · opened 2020

79.6%

1 year

59%

3 years

45.7%

5 years

30%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 512, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

national competitionmedium capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 512 Motion picture and sound recording industries

Project-financed work dependent on commissioners and tax credits. Service production follows the exchange rate and the incentives.

Who sets the price: Broadcasters, streamers and tax-credit regimes.
The software it runs on: Production management, post-production pipelines, rights and royalties.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

No operating-business record sits in this industry — the record filed here is a software market, shown in the next section.

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

Vertical softwareScreened

Podcast Hosting & Monetisation PlatformsOne thing must be true

binding constraint: willingness to pay

Incumbent Spotify (Megaphone, Spotify for Creators)

Spotify gives hosting and distribution away to acquire supply, which sets the price of the core product at zero and leaves the paid tier selling analytics and ad insertion to a creator base where the median show earns nothing. The revenue is in the ad marketplace, and that is a sales business with a network effect already won. Sourced update: the monetisation half of this category is shrinking at the platform that defines it — Spotify's podcast and direct ad sales fell €116M in 2025 on lower CPMs, inside an ad-supported line that is now 11% of revenue and declining. Hosting was already free; now the ad pool it was supposed to feed is contracting.

NAICS 51223 vendors named4 sourced figuresOpen →

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Companies in this industry · 7

Every company this research names that is filed here or beneath — the operators, and the vendors that sell to them — largest disclosed revenue first. The rank is within the company’s own six-digit industry.

Company	Filed under	Revenue	Rank
SpotifySPOT	Sound recording industries5122	€17.2B	1/7
AcastPrivate	Sound recording industries5122	—	2/7
BuzzsproutPrivate	Sound recording industries5122	—	3/7
CaptivatePrivate	Sound recording industries5122	—	4/7
CastosPrivate	Sound recording industries5122	—	5/7
LibsynPrivate	Sound recording industries5122	—	6/7
TransistorPrivate	Sound recording industries5122	—	7/7

Who works here

The occupations employed in Information and cultural industries, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Tagged to this industry

Managers in art, culture, recreation and sport

Concentrated in this sectorA

Managers in communication (except broadcasting) One industry 77.8%

Librarians, archivists, conservators and curators One industry 74.8%

Technical occupations in motion pictures, broadcasting and the performing arts Mostly one sector 43.1%

Library, correspondence and other clerks Mostly one sector 41.3%

Photographers and support occupations in arts and culture Mostly one sector 31%

Managers in art, culture, recreation and sport Mostly one sector 30.4%

Technical occupations in libraries and public archives Mostly one sector 29.5%

Support occupations in art and culture Mostly one sector 23.6%

Graphic and interior designers Mostly one sector 14.1%

Computer, software and Web designers and developers Mostly one sector 10.3%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 12.8%

Customer and information services representatives Across the economy 6.1%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 4.3%

Survey, statistical and data entry occupations Across the economy 3.9%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 3.1%

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 2.9%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 2.2%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 2.1%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 2%

Administrative, property and payroll officers Across the economy 1.1%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. But note the shape of this industry: 86% of establishments have fewer than ten employees, and at that size most of these roles are one person wearing several hats, or bought in from outside.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

4 rows sit directly beneath 5122, and 8 in all once every level is counted. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
51223	Music publishers	97	screened at 5122
51224	Sound recording studios	153	screened at 5122
51225	Record production and distribution	96	screened at 5122
51229	Other sound recording industries	23	screened at 5122

Alongside it, under 512 Motion picture and sound recording industries

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
5121	Motion picture and video industries	5,693	Film & TV Production Payroll & Spend Software Video Production Pipeline Software