CBC Using Faulty Data to Develop New Strategy
CBC-Radio Canada recently released its 2024-25 annual report. Naturally it is chock-a-block with statistics and trumpets the many successes of CBC radio, TV and online digital services. The report clearly illustrates the important role CBC plays in the lives of most of Canada’s 41 million people.
However, early in the report is this strange assertion in a section entitled Audiences: “Canadians are increasingly shifting their media consumption to digital platforms, spending an average of 31.5 hours online weekly. Traditional media usage continues to decline, with TV and radio averaging 11.6 and 5.4 hours weekly, respectively.” Undoubtedly traditional radio/TV use has declined but not at the extreme rate depicted here. This same claim is made in two other official CBC documents and is the foundation of the new CBC strategy. Senior managers at CBC have been grossly mislead by this research, which is ironically contradicted by Numeris/Comscore data that appears later in the annual report (which CBC pays millions of dollars to access). Putting emphasis on clearly faulty data I believe has meant CBC is investing too few dollars in traditional radio/TV and too many resources in digital services.
The source of the above mentioned research is the “MTM Survey,” which is actually called a “division” of CBC. The MTM is used sporadically by other organizations including CRTC but it is designed and controlled by CBC. The MTM has not been audited by independent researchers, is not sanctioned by any professional standards organization and doesn’t release the questions used in its surveys. Moreover this type of survey is not designed to measure time spent with radio/TV or the internet. Asking respondents how much time they typically spend with radio/TV is not recognized as a legitimate audience measurement methodology. CBC recognized this in its last CRTC licence renewal. Audience measurement is done by independent Canadian audience measurement organizations such as Numeris and Comscore who measure audiences minute by minute on a year round basis.
Comscore’s 24/7 continuous surveys estimate that Canadians spend roughly 20 hours per week online, much lower than the MTM. Comscore includes all internet use such as emailing, banking, search, streaming, posting on social media, gambling, shopping, navigating routes and dozens of other things people do online. However, media consumption, reading, listening and watching video, is but a fraction of internet use according to Comscore and that is the internet use CBC should focus on.
Numeris’ 24/7 surveys using world class measurement technology puts radio and TV use at much higher levels than the MTM. Radio use according to Numeris is about 7-13 hours per week depending on the methodology used. TV viewing is about 15 to 22 hours weekly (with an additional 9-12 hours spent streaming). Ironically when CBC measures its audience performance in its annual report (or sells advertising) it primarily uses Comscore and Numeris, the industry standard.
CBC quotes extensively from Comscore in this year’s annual report and says the monthly number of visitors to CBC digital services, including news and entertainment, was about 21 million people in 2024-25 or roughly half of the Canadian population. Pretty respectable. But Comscore says visitors spent only about 45 minutes per month or about 11 minutes per week. Note this includes video or TV-like services like CBC Gem and Ici Tou.TV. On a total per capita basis this shrinks to about 5 minutes per week. Not so impressive. Especially if the time spent with CBC digital services is expressed as a % share of the 20 or so weekly hours of total internet use: 0.4%! It’s not only CBC with small digital audiences, other radio/TV outlets and content creators are in the same predicament.
Using Numeris data CBC puts its share of weekly hours spent watching the main English TV and news channel at 7.5% and the French equivalents at 29.3%. Numeris reports CBC English radio services at 13.7% share and Radio Canada’s Ici Première and Ici Musique at 26.4%. Very substantial audience shares for all these services; CBC radio is often the number one station in most cities. CBC English TV lags other CBC services but nonetheless combined these percentages translate into Canadians spending almost 5 hours per week using CBC-Radio Canada on a per capita basis, compared to CBC digital’s meager 5 minutes per week. Read that again: 5 hours vs. 5 minutes per week. Without a doubt because of its radio/TV services and to the chagrin of CBC’s many vocal critics, CBC-Radio Canada is still a major choice for Canadians, comparable to or more important than Bell Media, Rogers Media, Corus or Quebecor. The most strident critics often work in competing media.
When the president of CBC appeared before a parliamentary committee recently to reveal her new strategy for CBC she said our “digital services (are) used by 21 million Canadians each month.” Every CBC president since the internet first appeared on the media scene has touted this metric, created by Nielsen in the late 90’s because millions of competing web sites couldn’t attract TV/radio audience levels, so Nielsen created a new metric, monthly audience reach counting people who spent even just a few minutes on your service over a month and voila many web sites had a “large” audience. Ratings and audience share were ignored. Likewise when CBC relies on the millions or billions of “views” they receive on YouTube, etc. it is even more ill-defined data hyperbole.
CBC’s annual report is correct to point out the importance of audiences, which are the essence of a public broadcaster. As CBC develops its post-2025 strategy it needs to correctly use and understand the data used to guide that strategy, which means acknowledging that its very successful radio and TV services are far more impactful than its digital services and funding decisions should follow suit.
Barry Kiefl, Ottawa
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