Stingray Music

Country	Canada
Broadcast area	National
Headquarters	Montreal, Quebec
Ownership
Owner	Stingray Digital
History
Launched	September 10, 1997
Former names	Galaxie (1997–2014)
Links
Website	music.stingray.com/en_CA/

Stingray Music is a Canada-based international multi-platform audio service that broadcasts continuous streaming music and other forms of audio on multiple channel feeds. The service is owned by Stingray Digital.

While a song is playing on the audio, channel name, artist, song, Stingray's web address and genre-themed clip art are displayed on every music channel.

History

The service's beginnings in Canada started in December 1995, when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was granted approval from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to launch a national pay audio service named Galaxie consisting of 30 channels in both English and French.^[1]

The service launched as Galaxie on September 10, 1997, under the ownership of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation by offering 30 music channels.^[2]

Because of service duplication, in 2002, Galaxie and Max Trax (a similar television service owned by Corus Entertainment at the time) agreed to provide a joint 40-channel audio distribution service to satellite and digital cable television providers called Galaxie Max Trax. The package consisted of 20 Galaxie and 20 Max Trax channels.

At the end of December 2008, Stingray Digital held a sound broadcasting license from the CRTC.^[3] On February 13, 2009, Corus Entertainment sold its equipment and the Max Trax brand to Stingray^[4] so that the service was offered without interruption until Stingray launched its own service.

On October 1, 2009, the Max Trax brand was discontinued, like its owners, Stingray Digital and the CBC merged the two services together under the Galaxie brand. Stingray Digital, who had been operating as the exclusive sales and development agent for Galaxie since late 2007, officially took over as managing partner in the service upon completion of merger.^[5][6]

According to Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) records, Stingray purchased Galaxie from the CBC in May 2011^[7] for a reported $65 million.^[8]

On November 18, 2011, Stingray announced it had expanded the number of Galaxie channels available to be offered to distributors to 100.^[9] On January 10, 2012, Shaw Cable was the first distributor in Canada to launch 15 of those additional channels, the majority of which were focused on various genres of multicultural and multilingual music.^[10] The full slate of new channels were rolled out to consumers when SaskTel became the first distributor to carry all 100 channels in May 2012.^[11]

On September 30, 2014, Stingray announced it was uniting all of its properties under the Stingray brand, effective immediately, with Galaxie rebranded as Stingray Music,^[12] albeit with audio channels still Galaxie branded until early 2015 and the OnDemand music video service is still branded Galaxie with only some music videos Stingray branded.

In 2014, Stingray Music launched a mobile app. The app was later updated in 2015 with 1,500+ personalized channels known as "Vibes" and these channels are also available later on some TV providers, for instance Bell MTS.^[13][14][15]

In 2019, it was announced that the Stingray Music's mobile app was made available for free in the U.S. and Canada. Users can choose to listen to the ad-supported service or pay $0.99 (made-for-students discount)/$3.99 to access the premium service that was already made available to participating TV providers' subscribers. Unlimited skips are also available, whereas before only 6 skips were authorized hourly.^[16][17]

In August 2020, the company announced the launch of Stingray Music - with six leading platforms - in the United States.^[18]

In September 2020, it was announced that Stingray's holdings in the company AppDirect, which was about to launch its own initial public offering, were valued at C$26 million.^[19]

Programming

Stingray Music primarily broadcasts music across over 150 uninterrupted channel feeds available worldwide, carefully curated by 25 Montreal-based music programmers and 175 more globally.^[20] Each channel is programmed around a particular musical genre or theme, and carries a playlist containing somewhere between 150 and over 3,000 songs. The channels cover a wide range of genres and sub-genres including pop, rock, jazz, electronic, classical, and more. Programming is primarily in English, however, multiple channels feature programming in French, Spanish, Punjabi, among others. The majority of channels broadcasts music, however, other audio feeds are available that broadcast instrumentals, nature sounds, and others.

Stingray Music programmers select the music based on music trends and feedback from viewers. The sequence of tracks and the tracks themselves are constantly updated and scheduled at exact times using professional computer programs, with no block of programming repeats exactly itself and no random playing.^[21]

A sample list of channels

Note: Ratings of the TV-MA channels are sourced from U.S.'s AT&T U-verse, if they are carried on the provider (such channels are noted in asterisks). Channels with (G) note denotes it (or its format) has been carried since the beginning. Channels with (M) note denotes it's been carried over from Max Trax after the two services merged. The channels offered varies from one provider to another.

Defunct channels

Artist development

Stingray Music sponsors a number of "Stingray Rising Stars Awards" (formerly Galaxie Rising Stars) presented at a variety of music festivals and awards presentations each year, including Canadian Music Week's Indie Awards, the East Coast Music Awards, and the Western Canadian Music Awards, among numerous others.^[22] Stingray also sponsors an annual Songs from the Heart competition for new and emerging songwriters. The Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award is presented to the winner of the competition.

International

Americas

Stingray Music is also carried in both the United States and the Caribbean via various television providers. Expansion began in 2009 with the addition of Stingray to various smaller market television providers in the U.S. and in 2010, Galaxie was added to WIV Cable TV in the Turks and Caicos^[23] as well as Trinidad and Tobago.^[24] In April 2011, Galaxie further expanded their reach in the US when American cable company Insight Communications chose Galaxie as their new radio provider to replace MTV Networks' defunct Urge service across their service area in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio.^[25] Galaxie further expanded into the Caribbean with the launch onto Jamaican television provider Telstar Cable.^[24] In October 2011, Galaxie was further added to more US television services.^[26] Galaxie furthered its expansion into the Caribbean and Latin American regions with its launch on various television providers in a number of different countries including St. Marteen, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and 10 others.^[27]

On October 29, 2014, Stingray Music launched on AT&T U-verse, adding approximately six million subscribers.^[28] In December 2018, Altice USA reached an agreement with Stingray to replace its main rival, Music Choice, on its cable systems (including former Cablevision systems in New York City, and Suddenlink). At the same time, Stingray abandoned its bid to acquire Music Choice.^[29][30]

Europe

Stingray purchased the European operations of Music Choice in 2011, which rebranded as Stingray Music in April 2015.^[31][32]

In 2014, Stingray Digital acquired Dutch premium service XLnt Radio (along with Lite TV) from the Archibald Media Group.^[33]

Oceania

In Australia, Stingray partners with pay television provider Foxtel to offer a suite of audio channels under the name Foxtel Music via the latter's cable and satellite services. Foxtel subscribers also have access to the Stingray Music app, allowing users to stream the channels on their mobile device.^[34]

During 2022 Australia's 7 Network, through its 7 Plus internet suite of AV services, commenced free-to-air streaming of five 24/7 Stingray-branded video music channels comprising Qello Concerts (rock), dJazz (contemporary jazz), Karaoke, Classica (classical music) and Naturescape (featuring world nature video photography set to peaceful music).