Annual highlights of the broadcasting sector 2024-2025

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Link directly to Table of Contents Table of Contents

• Introduction to the 2024-2025 Communications Market Report
• Highlights of the broadcasting sector for the 2024-2025 broadcast year
• Section 1: Changing landscape of traditional and online broadcasting revenues
  • Commercial traditional radio
  • Commercial traditional television
  • Broadcasting distribution undertakings
  • Online services
  • Profitability of commercial services
  • Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Société Radio-Canada
• Section 2: Spotlight on contributions to Canadian content and programming
  • Traditional commercial radio
  • Traditional commercial television
  • Broadcasting distribution undertakings
  • Official language minority communities
• Section 3: News and sports
  • News content
  • Sports content
• Section 4: Service penetration
• Section 5: Listening and viewing of broadcasting services
  • Audio listening habits
  • Audiovisual viewership habits
• Section 6: methodology
  • CRTC data collection
  • Media technology monitor
  • Numeris
  • Public Opinion Research (POR)
  • Vividata
• Definitions

link directly to Charts and tables Charts and tables

• Chart 1: Commercial broadcasting revenues, 2025
• Chart 2: Commercial broadcasting revenue (in $ billions)
• Table 1: Commercial traditional radio revenues
• Table 2: Commercial traditional conventional and discretionary television revenues
• Chart 3: BDU subscribers (in millions) and revenues (in $ billions)
• Table 3: BDU subscribers by price point
• Chart 4: Revenues of online services (in $ billions)
• Chart 5: Commercial broadcasting profitability (PBIT Margin %) by sector
• Chart 6a: CBC/SRC radio revenues (in $ billions)
• Chart 6b: CBC/SRC conventional television revenues (in $ billions)
• Chart 7: Contributions to Canadian content by traditional broadcasting, 2025 (in $ millions)
• Chart 8: Radio contributions to Canadian content development (in $ millions)
• Chart 9: Canadian programming expenses by commercial television services (in $ billions)
• Chart 10: BDU support for the creation and production of Canadian programming (in $ millions)
• Chart 11: Allocated funds to support OLMC programming, television (in $ millions)
• Chart 12: Canadian radio programming expenditures by stations who serve OLMCs (in $ millions)
• Chart 13: Revenue and expenses of mainstream sports & national news (in $ millions)
• Chart 14: Platforms Canadians (18+) used to get local news, 2025
• Chart 15: Online news consumption habits of Francophone & Anglophone Canadians 18+
• Chart 16: Percentage of Canadians who indicated they consumed sports content in the past month, by platform, 2025
• Chart 17: Penetration of audio services by demographic, 18+, 2025
• Chart 18: Penetration of audiovisual services by demographic, 18+, 2025
• Chart 19: Average weekly hours spent per user listening to audio services
• Chart 20: Average weekly hours spent streaming audio, by type
• Chart 21: Average weekly hours spent per viewer watching audiovisual services
• Chart 22: Total weekly hours spent watching traditional television services (in millions)
• Chart 23: Mean weekly viewership hours by young Canadians, 2025

Introduction to the 2024-2025 Communications Market Report

This report presents key metrics and insights from the broadcasting market for the 2025 broadcast year. In 2025, the Canadian broadcasting system experienced a continuation of recent structural shifts. Online services increased their market share, while traditional services reported declines in subscribers and advertising revenue.

Between 2021 and 2025, both English-language and French-language broadcasting markets experienced declining revenues as the shift toward online services continued. Despite these challenges, French-language broadcasters have continued to allocate a larger share of their revenues to programming, particularly in television. Moreover, differences in media consumption habits between Anglophone and Francophone audiences have narrowed, as Francophones have increasingly adopted digital media. Nevertheless, traditional broadcasting continues to have a relatively higher penetration rate among Francophone audiences

Highlights of the broadcasting sector for the 2024-2025 broadcast year

In 2025, the traditional broadcasting share of the broadcasting market decreased by five percentage points. Online services^{Footnote 1} accounted for 40% of the total broadcasting revenues, with the audiovisual segment generating higher revenues than broadcasting distribution undertakings (BDUs). This trend is line with Media Technology Monitor (MTM) findings, suggesting that a growing number of Canadian households exclusively consume content through streaming platforms, up from 29% in 2024 to 33% in 2025.

Additional data from the 2025 Broadcast year is available in the Communications Market Reports – Open Data and the Financial Summaries for Broadcasting Sector web pages.

Section 1: Changing landscape of traditional and online broadcasting revenues

Total commercial broadcasting revenues increased by 2.4% in 2025. This growth was driven by a 13.9% increase in revenues from online services. At the same time, revenues declined by 4.1% across all traditional broadcasting sectors.

Commercial traditional radio

In 2025, total radio revenues declined by 2.6%. Despite the revenue decrease, radio remained one of the more resilient sectors, second after discretionary television, amid ongoing financial pressures in the broadcasting market.

Radio revenues were largely driven by local advertising, which accounts for 66.8% of total radio revenues. Given the reliance on local advertising, the economic health of radio broadcasting is impacted by local markets. As local advertising sources face broad economic pressure, the softening of local advertising has a larger impact on the radio sector than other broadcasting sectors.

This past year, radio local advertising decreased 2.5% or $18.4 million, with revenues of French radio stations (-2.8%) declining at a higher rate than English radio stations (-2.5%). While more recent declines may raise concerns, this trend did follow a period of recovery, with local radio advertising growing at an annual average of 2.7% since COVID-related economic pressures.

The revised commercial radio policy encourages commercial radio stations to support the discoverability of emerging artists and Indigenous artists through their programming.^{Footnote 2} In 2025, tracks by emerging artists accounted for 4.5% of all tracks aired on the radio, down 0.2 percentage points from the previous year. In contrast, tracks by Indigenous artists accounted for 0.2% of all tracks aired on the radio, down 0.6 percentage points from the previous year.

Commercial traditional television

Both conventional television and discretionary television reported declines in revenues. As advertising spending has increasingly shifted to digital platforms, television services have seen a reduction in advertising revenues.

Conventional television, which derived 92.3% of its revenues from advertising in 2025, is more directly exposed to this decline. In contrast, discretionary television draws on more diversified revenue sources, with advertising accounting for 32.7% and 65.6% derived from subscriptions.

Broadcasting distribution undertakings

From 2021 to 2025, BDU revenues and subscriber numbers continued to decline. During that time, revenues decreased by an average of 6.1% per year, while the number of subscribers declined at an average annual rate of 3.5%. However, cable and television over Internet Protocol (IPTV) services continued to perform better than direct-to-home satellite services, as cable and IPTV experienced slower declines in revenues and number of subscribers.

According to MTM, BDU penetration rate among Canadians declined to 58% in 2025, continuing a longer-term downward trend. As existing subscribers leave the BDU market and new households may choose not to subscribe to BDU services, subscriber growth is not keeping pace with population and household growth, which is impacting the overall decline.

Additionally, the monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) decreased slightly from $59.3 in 2024 to $58.9 in 2025. While cable and IPTV services showed more resilience in terms of declining revenues and subscribers, satellite services had a higher monthly ARPU ($98) than cable and IPTV services ($54.6).

The faster decline in BDU revenues relative to subscribers suggests that, rather cutting the cord altogether, some Canadians may be adjusting their service packages by opting for lower-priced BDU tier services.

BDU subscription data may reflect an ongoing shift in consumer behaviour toward lower-cost service options. Over the past year, the number of subscribers to higher-priced services has declined significantly, while lower-cost services reported some modest growth.

This trend may reflect ongoing changes in the broadcasting environment, as Canadians increasingly access content through a variety of platforms, including online services. As BDU audiences and revenues continue to shift toward online services, some Canadians may be opting for lower-priced BDU packages as one component of a broader mix of audiovisual services, rather than relying on them as their primary source of audiovisual content.

Online services

Domestic and foreign online services increased revenues by 13.9%, which continued to grow their share of the broadcasting system. The 2025 broadcast year marked the largest year-over-year revenue growth for online services since the CRTC launched the Annual Digital Media Survey. Since 2021, audio revenues for online services have increased at an average annual rate of 11.6%, while audiovisual revenues for online services increased revenue increased at an average annual rate of 13.6%.

Profitability of commercial services

At a broad level, the profitability of traditional broadcasting sectors is under pressure. The cost of producing and delivering programming to Canadians has increased, while revenues have generally declined across traditional sectors. These trends reflect the challenges traditional broadcasters face considering online streaming environments and how audiences choose to access content.

In 2025, most traditional commercial broadcasting sectors reported a decrease in Profit Before Interest and Taxes (PBIT), with the exception of BDUs.

• Radio PBIT decreased by 0.2 percentage points.
• Conventional television PBIT decreased by 11.3 percentage points.
• Discretionary television PBIT decreased by 1.1 percentage points.
• BDU operating margin increased by 0.7 percentage points.

French-language radio stations reported a higher PBIT margin than English-language radio stations. While English-language stations generated more revenues overall, French-language stations maintained lower expenses relative to revenue, contributing to stronger profitability. French-language stations have also historically reported stronger profitability than English-language stations from 2021 to 2025. Although those margins declined over that period, the higher historic PBIT margins may help to explain why French-language stations remained more profitable in light of reporting a higher revenue decline in 2025. Furthermore, AM stations have struggled to report a profit in the past five years, whereas FM stations reported a PBIT of 6.9% in 2025.

Conventional television PBIT of -40.4% was the lowest level over the past five years. Long-term data shows that conventional television was not profitable pre-pandemic, suggesting a longer-lasting trend rather than short-term financial pressure.

Despite the decline in profitability, the discretionary television sector remained the most profitable of the traditional broadcasting sectors. Vertically integrated services, those where the broadcaster owns the programming service and the distribution platform, were less profitable (PBIT of 10.5%) than non-vertically integrated services (PBIT of 16.2%), a trend observed over the past five years. The PBIT of discretionary English & Bilingual services (13%) continued to report higher profitability than discretionary French (1.3%) services.

BDU was the one sector to report an increase in profitability since 2024. Cable and IPTV, as well as satellite services, contributed to this improvement. While cable and IPTV services account for the majority of BDU revenues and subscribers, satellite services remain significantly more profitable, with an operating margin of 36.5% compared to 4.6% for cable and IPTV.

The radio sector is composed of many stations under a relatively diverse ownership compared to other sectors. Radio has lower levels of concentration, since stations owned by large ownership groups^{Footnote 3},^{Footnote 4} account for less than half of the total radio revenues. Despite this distribution, large radio groups reported more stable profitability in 2025, with a PBIT margin of 5.1% compared with 3.2% for the radio sector overall.

Revenues for conventional and discretionary televisions are more concentrated among large ownership groups, which accounted for 88% of total sector revenues in 2025. Discretionary services owned by large groups reported a slightly higher PBIT margin of 11.5% compared with 10.9% for the discretionary services sector overall. Among large ownership groups, English-language discretionary services (13.4%) reported higher profitability than French-language discretionary services (2.9%).

For conventional television, stations owned by large television ownership groups reported a PBIT margin of -45.1%. Conventional television is the only sector where stations owned by smaller ownership groups reported a higher PBIT margin (2%) than their larger counterparts. English (-42.1%) and French (-46.8%) conventional television stations owned by large ownership groups both reported negative PBITs.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Société Radio-Canada

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Société Radio-Canada (CBC/SRC) receives a parliamentary appropriation to operate CBC/SRC radio and conventional television services. Parliamentary appropriation is a necessity for CBC/SRC radio and CBC/SRC conventional television to provide programming and production.

CBC/SRC radio does not receive revenue from commercial advertising. As such, CBC/SRC radio’s revenue structure remains reliant on parliamentary appropriations, with expenditure budgets adjusting to support program delivery to Canadians.

In contrast to CBC/SRC radio, CBC/SRC conventional television generates roughly one quarter of its revenue from advertising. National advertising revenue decreased by 28.4% in 2025. However, 2024 was an Olympic year and CBC/SRC advertising revenues tend to be higher in years with major broadcast events such as the Olympics.

Section 2: Spotlight on contributions to Canadian content and programming

In 2025, total contributions to Canadian content and programming reached $2.976 billion. Contributions have decreased by 1.7% since 2024, with more pronounced declines in radio and BDU sectors. In comparison, television Canadian programming expenditures (CPE) remained relatively stable despite revenue declines, likely due to continued high program production costs and allocation of spending towards news and sports.

Traditional commercial radio

Canadian Content Development (CCD) by Commercial radio stations totalled $21.2 million in 2025, a 15.2% decline since 2024. This change coincides with the conclusion of some tangible benefits contributions in 2024. In 2025, CCD to Musication and Factor, contributions to support the creation and promotion of English-language and French-language music in Canada, reportedly decreased by 21.9% and 34.7%, respectively.

Traditional commercial television

The combined CPE of commercial conventional stations and discretionary services reached $2.6 billion, increasing at an average annual rate of 4.5% since 2021. The growth has been driven largely by sports programming expenditures, which grew at an average annual rate of 7.8%. In contrast, news programming expenditures declined at an average annual rate of 1.2%. Discretionary services allocated a greater share of expenditures to sports programming, while conventional television stations allocated more expenditures to news programming.

In 2025, entities with total broadcasting revenues exceeding $25 million paid approximately 45% more in CPE than required.

The CMPA’s 2025 Profile report suggests that the sum of production volume in Canada increased from 2024 to 2025, driven by investments from foreign location and services, as well as Canadian broadcaster in-house productions.

Broadcasting distribution undertakings

Over the past five years, BDU contributions have decreased by an average of 6% annually. In 2025, contributions fell 14.8% year over year, the largest decline observed during this period. Cable & IPTV services accounted for 80.5% of total BDU contributions. Contributions by Cable & IPTV declined at a slightly higher rate (15.1%) than contributions by Satellite services (13.6%). BDUs may carry forward over-contributions from previous years, including those made in 2024.

BDU contributions support the creation and promotion of Canadian programming across a range of categories. In 2025, BDUs allocated $136.9 million to the Canada Media Fund to support the creation and promotion of Canadian content. BDUs also allocated $90.3 million to the support of Community Programming, $35.8 million to locally reflective news programming, and $14.8 million to the Independent Local News Fund, which supports the production of local news by independently owned television stations.

Official language minority communities

Official Language Minority Communities (OLMC) can be interpreted as English- and French-language minority communities in Canada, such as English-language communities in Quebec and French-language communities outside Quebec. Programming expenditures directed to OLMCs refer to funds allocated by broadcasters to programming in minority languages that is intended for official langue minority communities.

In 2025, CPE to OLMC programming declined by 4.2%. Despite the decrease in 2025, CPE to OLMC programming has trended upward over the past five years. Since 2021, these expenditures have grown at an average annual rate of 4.9%.

CPE to English-language OLMC programming in Quebec accounted for 53.3% of total OLMC expenditures. On a per capita basis, however, expenditure on French-language programming by OLMCs outside of Quebec were slightly higher.

Overall, the recent decline appears to be consistent with broader market trends, as television services reduce programming costs in response to ongoing financial pressures. Over the longer term, expenditures directed to OLMCs continue to show an overall upward trend.

Commercial radio stations that serve OLMCs continued to operate in Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick. In 2025, there were eight English-language commercial stations operating in Quebec and eight French-language commercial stations operating across Ontario and New Brunswick.

Since 2021, stations that serve OLMCs have not been immune to the financial pressures of the radio industry and programming expenditures have steadily decreased to offset declining revenue streams. Over this period, English-language OLMC programming expenditures have declined by an average annual rate of 0.6%, while French-language OLMC programming expenditures have declined by an average annual rate of 2.1%. Despite this 5-year trend, a year-over-year increase of 4.9% in total OLMC programming expenditures was observed in 2025, suggesting a partial recovery.

Section 3: News and sports

Mainstream sports and national news are a category of discretionary television services that primarily provide live sports coverage or national news programming.^{Footnote 5} From 2021 to 2025, mainstream sports and national news discretionary services remained profitable. However, profitability has weakened over this period, with PBIT margins of mainstream sports and national news discretionary services declining from 14.3% in 2021 to 7.3% in 2025.

Despite the five-year decline, year-over-year performance showed some improvement in 2025, with the PBIT margin of mainstream sports and national news discretionary services increasing by 2.1 percentage points compared to 2024. While revenues have grown at an average annual rate of 6.1% between 2021 and 2025, expense growth outpaced revenue growth, rising at an average annual rate of 8.2% over the same period. The cost of buying program rights is still the fastest-growing expense for mainstream sports and national news discretionary services, increasing at an average annual rate of 11% since 2021.

English-language mainstream sports and national news discretionary services are performing better than their French-language counterparts. In 2025, the PBIT margin of these English-language broadcasts was 9.4%, compared to the PBIT margin of -3.2% of French-language mainstream sports and national news discretionary services.

Commercial conventional television has continued to allocate over half of their production expenditures (51.2%) to news programming. Although commercial conventional television expenditures on news programming have decreased by an average annual rate of 2% since 2021, news remained a significant cost for a sector that has not recorded a profit for more than a decade, raising concerns about its long-term financial sustainability.

News content

CRTC’s public opinion research (POR) suggests that 4 out of 5 Canadians say news and current affairs are important to them. In addition, about 9 out of 10 Canadians also value trustworthy news sources.

In its 2025 study of the Canadian consumer, Vividata asked Canadians which platforms were used to get local news. Findings from Vividata indicate that Canadians continue to use traditional broadcasting platforms for local news, with television being the leading source, even as online platforms such as news apps and social media have gained traction as an avenue for news consumption in recent years.

MTM data shows that nearly 3 out of 4 Canadians have consumed online news since 2019, suggesting that online news continues to play an important role in how Canadians stay informed about current events.

In 2025, a higher share of Anglophones consumed online news than Francophones, 6 percentage points more for written content and 11 percentage points more for video content. This finding is consistent with other data patterns that suggest Francophones are more likely than Anglophones to consume media through traditional platforms.

Sports content

Traditional platforms remain an important avenue for sports consumption in Canada, as live sports continue to drive stronger engagement on television and radio. In 2025, approximately 40% of Canadians reported consuming sports content on traditional television in the past month, compared with about 13% on radio and under 10% on online sports services. While consumption of sports content on online services has grown in recent years, their reach remained lower relative to traditional platforms.

Section 4: Service penetration

Each year, MTM conducts a survey on the broadcasting consumption habits of Canadians aged 18 and older. Participants may self-identify as Anglophone, Francophone, Racialized, and/or Indigenous. The group “Canadians 18+” represents an aggregate of all demographics and serves as a baseline for comparing consumption habits across different population groups.

Data from the MTM Fall 2025 survey suggests that Canadians were more likely to stream audio content than to listen to the radio through a traditional receiver. Approximately 80% of Canadians reported listening to online audio services, compared with 72% who reported listening to traditional radio, continuing a pattern observed in recent years.

Across official language groups, Anglophones (80%) and Francophones (81%) were similarly likely to stream audio content. Differences are more pronounced for traditional radio, with Francophone (78%) respondents being 6 percentage points more likely than Anglophones (72%) to report listening to traditional radio.

Among racialized Canadians, 87% of respondents reported streaming audio content, compared to 65% who reported listening to traditional radio. A similar pattern is observed among Indigenous Peoples, where 90% of respondents reported using online audio services, compared with 59% for traditional audio.

MTM reports that younger Canadians are generally more likely to stream audio content than any other age group. Given that Indigenous Peoples and Racialized Canadians tend to have younger age profiles, age may contribute to the higher levels of online audio consumption observed among these groups.

A similar pattern is observed for audiovisual services. Among Canadians aged 18 and over, 3 out of 4 Canadians (77%) reported subscribing to an online service, compared to over half of Canadians (58%) who subscribed to a traditional BDU service.

Among Anglophones, 79% reported subscribing to an online service compared with 55% to a traditional service. Similar differences were observed among Racialized Canadians (86% vs. 50%) and Indigenous Peoples (79% vs. 45%).

In contrast, Francophones were the group with the highest relative use of traditional television services at 69%. This pattern has been observed over time and may be associated with the availability of French-language content on traditional platforms. At the same time, in 2025, Francophones were slightly more likely to subscribe to an online service than a BDU service (72% vs. 69%), suggesting that penetration of both services were at comparable levels in Francophone households.

Section 5: Listening and viewing of broadcasting services

Audio listening habits

In 2025, online audio services account for more than half (65%) of average weekly audio listening hours, and have consistently represented the large sharer of listening since 2021. The data suggests that Canadians spent about 30 minutes less listening to radio each week and 1.25 hours more on online audio services.

As a result, traditional radio recorded its lowest level of average weekly listening in five years, while streamed audio reached its highest level over the same period, reflecting evolving listening habits alongside their growing share of audio revenues. These patterns reflect a continued shift toward audio streaming, as younger Canadians continue to veer more towards audio online services than traditional ones.

Canadian audio streaming usage increased in 2024 and 2025. Most of this growth has come from music streaming, which has steadily increased and accounted for 68% of total audio streaming usage in 2025.

Podcast listening has grown modestly, but remains 5.3 average weekly hours below music streaming. In contrast AM/FM streaming has remained relatively low and stable, showing only a small increase.

This data suggests that while online audio is rising overall, not all formats have been growing at the same pace, with music streaming accounting for most of the total hours of growth.

Audiovisual viewership habits

Video Audience Measurement (VAM), produced by Numeris, measures in-home consumption of audiovisual content within the Canadian broadcasting system. As VAM only currently collects streaming activity in Ontario and Quebec’s Francophone markets, comparisons between streaming and traditional television are more appropriate when presented on a per-user average. By 2026, VAM data will be available at the national level, which will allow for a more comprehensive comparison of streaming and traditional television viewing across Canada.

Numeris data suggests that Canadians spent more time watching traditional television than streaming online services, but the gap has been shrinking over time. Since 2021, time spent on traditional TV has declined at an average annual rate of 5.9%, while streaming online services have grown by 18.4% annually, with streaming stabilizing in recent years.

The slower decline in traditional viewing, compared with faster growth in streaming, suggests that Canadians are not relying on a single type of service. MTM data indicates that while 33% of households reported subscribing only to streaming services, a larger share (44%) report subscribing to both traditional television and online audiovisual services.

Canadians have been watching less traditional television, resulting in their consumption in total hours decreasing, on average, by 5% per year since 2015. Total weekly hours watching traditional television by Canadians outside of Quebec have declined at an average annual rate of 4.5%, while viewership by Canadians in the Quebec Francophone market has declined at a slower rate of 3.2%. The relatively slower decline in Quebec has been consistently observed and may be partly attributable to a greater concentration of French-language programming on traditional platforms compared to online platforms.

However, one distinct shift emerged in 2025. Weekly viewing hours fell more in the Quebec francophone market than in the rest of Canada, -9% and -6.2%, respectively. This instance is the first time since 2021 that the decline has been steeper in Quebec.

Among Canadians aged 2-17, viewing patterns are broadly consistent across age groups, with more time spent watching online services than traditional TV. Overall weekly viewing levels remain similar; however, online services exceed traditional television by about 1.3 hours per week on average. This gap is largest among youth aged 12-17 who spend approximately 2 more hours per week watching traditional online services than traditional services.

Section 6: Methodology

CRTC data collection

The CRTC data collection has sourced its statistical and financial data from the annual returns provided by commercial and CBC/SRC radio stations, conventional television stations, discretionary services, and on-demand services for the broadcast year ending 31 August 2025.

CBC/SRC revenues include parliamentary appropriations for conventional television.

Annual returns for the broadcast year ending 31 August 2025 were required to be filed with the Commission by 30 November 2025. Data received after the compilation date is not reflected in this publication. The data reported for previous years has been updated to reflect any additional or adjusted information received by the Commission after the 31 August date for prior years’ publications.

Pursuant to Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2015-86, the term “discretionary services” now encompasses all currently licensed services formerly known as pay and specialty services, whereas the term “on-demand service” now encompasses all licensed pay-per-view and video-on-demand services.

Media technology monitor

MTM measures Canadians’ media technology adoption and use at two points in time to monitor changes in media penetration and use over the year. Telephone interviews are conducted with a regionally representative sample of Canadians who have landline telephone service and those who rely solely on cell phone service. The 2025 fall survey included 8,370 Canadian adults (4,570 Anglophones and 3,800 Francophones). Respondents 18+ may also self-identify as Racialized Canadians or Indigenous peoples. The Junior MTM survey of participants aged 2-17 included 2,101 respondents, consisting of 1,079 Anglophone and 1,022 Francophone participants. Respondents aged 12-17 completed the survey themselves, while a parent or guardian completed the survey on behalf of children under 12 years of age. This report uses data collected from the fall surveys unless stated otherwise.

Numeris

Audience measurement data is important not only to industry stakeholders, who use the data to help sell airtime to advertisers, but also to the CRTC, which uses the data to assess the effectiveness of its policies by understanding the reach of programming across the country and across various demographics.

Television audience measurement data sourced from Numeris was collected by portable people meter (PPM) devices.

Prior to 2019-2020, radio audience measurement data was based on Numeris radio data from the fall surveys across Canada, Monday to Sunday from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m., with participants aged 12 or older. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its extenuating factors, Numeris was unable to produce the Fall 2020 Radio Release. In its place, the Spring 2020 and Spring 2021 surveys were used. The Fall 2021 survey was used in 2020-2021. The Fall 2022 survey was used in 2021-2022.

Since 2021, Numeris only measures the top 22 markets, Monday to Sunday from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m., with participants aged 12 or older.

The Numeris data presented by linguistic market divides Canada into two sections: (1) all of Canada, excluding Francophone respondents in Quebec; and (2) exclusively Francophones respondents in Quebec.

The television seasons used by Numeris were the following:

• 26 August 2013 to 31 August 2014, includes all persons 2+, Monday to Sunday, 2 a.m. to 2 a.m.
• 1 September 2014 to 30 August 2015, includes all persons 2+, Monday to Sunday, 2 a.m. to 2 a.m.
• 31 August 2015 to 28 August 2016, includes all persons 2+, Monday to Sunday, 2 a.m. to 2 a.m.
• 29 August 2016 to 27 August 2017, includes all persons 2+, Monday to Sunday, 2 a.m. to 2.a.m.
• 28 August 2017 to 26 August 2018, includes all persons 2+, Monday to Sunday, 2 a.m. to 2 a.m.
• 27 August 2018 to 30 August 2019, includes all persons 2+, Monday to Sunday, 2 a.m. to 2 a.m.
• 26 August 2019 to 30 August 2020, includes all persons 2+, Monday to Sunday, 2 a.m. to 2 a.m.
• 31 August 2020 to 29 August 2021, includes all persons 2+, Monday to Sunday, 2 a.m. to 2 a.m.
• 30 August 2021 to 28 August 2022, includes all persons 2+, Monday to Sunday, 2 a.m. to 2 a.m.
• 29 August 2022 to 27 August 2023, includes all persons 2+, Monday to Sunday, 2 a.m. to 2 a.m.
• 28 August 2023 to 25 August 2024, includes all persons 2+, Monday to Sunday, 2 a.m. to 2 a.m.
• 26 August 2024 to 24 August 2025, includes all persons 2+, Monday to Sunday, 2 a.m. to 2 a.m.

The Online Undertakings audiovisual figures represent in-home Video Audience Measurement (VAM) of Numeris participating services. VAM data is collected using a FocalMeter, a small box attached to the participating household’s router that detects when Numeris participating stations and streaming services are watched on the internet through different digital devices. Only the Ontario market and the Quebec Francophone market were measured using VAM.

Public Opinion Research (POR)

Ipsos was commissioned by the CRTC to conduct public opinion research about Canadians’ views regarding their broadcasting, online, and telecommunications services. Online and telephone interviews were used to sample 2,367 Canadians aged 18 years or older. POR tracker is designed to be inclusive, ensuring the participation of all Canadians. The sample includes 1680 Anglophones, 516 Francophones, 118 Indigenous peoples, 618 Racialized Canadians, and 188 TSLGBTQ+ Canadians.

Vividata

Vividata’s Study of the Canadian Consumer (SCC) provides quarterly insights into Canadians’ media habits, consumer behaviours, and brand engagement across the country. The Fall 2025 survey consists of 70,137 respondents aged 14 and older, including 11,369 Francophones and 58,768 Anglophones, and is conducted online with a nationally representative sample across more than 40 markets. Respondents share detailed information on demographics, psychographics, media consumption (including print, digital, TV and audio), shopping behaviours, and brand usage. The SCC also includes the option for individuals to self-identify across a range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Unless otherwise noted, all findings reference data from the Fall 2025 release.

Definitions

• AVOD refers to advertising video-on-demand service. This is an Internet-based service model in which a client typically has free access to content but is exposed to in-stream advertisements (e.g., YouTube and Facebook).
• BDU revenues refers to revenues from basic and non-basic BDU services and excludes Internet-based service revenues, such as Netflix, Crave and Club Illico, but include Internet Protocol Television services such as Bell Fibe and Telus Optik TV.
• Broadcasting contributions to Canadian content include Canadian content development (CCD) contributions, Canadian programming expenditures (CPE), contributions to the creation and production of Canadian programming from BDUs, and tangible benefits from ownership transactions in the form of CCD contributions and CPE.
• Canadian programming expenditures refers to expenditures used to create Canadian programming and to ensure that a diversity of voices and interests are represented in our national broadcasting system. The policy objectives of the Broadcasting Act include encouraging the development of Canadian expression and ensuring that each element of the Canadian broadcasting system contributes to the creation and presentation of Canadian programming, in an appropriate manner. As such, Canadian broadcasters are required to allocate portions of their annual broadcasting revenues to expenditures on Canadian programming.
• Canadian content development (CCD) contributions are financial contributions made by radio broadcasters to support the development and promotion of Canadian musical and spoken word content for broadcast.
• Conventional TV refers to national broadcast television networks (i.e. CBC/SRC, Global, TVA).
• Direct-to-home (DTH) refers to satellite service providers.
• Discretionary services encompass all currently licensed services formerly known as pay and specialty services, pursuant to Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2015-86.
• Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) is a metric used to measure financial performance. It is expressed as a percentage of total revenues.
• IPTV refers to Internet Protocol Television, such as Bell Fibe and Telus Optik TV, but excludes Internet-based services, such as Netflix, Crave, and Club Illico.
• On-demand services encompass all licensed pay-per-view (PPV) and video-on-demand (VOD) services, pursuant to Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2015-86.
• Online Services refers to domestic and foreign services for the transmission or retransmission of programs over the Internet for reception by the public by means of broadcasting receiving apparatus, pursuant to Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2023-331.
• PBIT refers to profit before interest and taxes.
• Programs of national interest (PNI) are programs from the following categories:
  • Long-form documentary (category 2b);
  • Drama and comedy (category 7);
  • Music and dance (including music video clips and music video programs) and variety (categories 8 and 9) in the French-language market; and
  • English-language and French-language award shows (which fall under General entertainment and human interest [category 11]).
  • For French-language broadcasters, PNI also includes music video and variety programs.
• SVOD refers to subscription-based video-on-demand service. It is an Internet-based service model in which a client pays a subscription fee to gain access to a library of content. This category includes services that air the content of the library according to a linear schedule (e.g., Sportsnet Now) and services that permit a user to choose from a catalogue of content that is available at any time (e.g., Netflix and Amazon Prime Video).
• Total broadcasting revenues include revenues from private commercial and CBC/SRC conventional television, discretionary and on-demand services, private commercial and CBC/SRC radio services, as well as BDUs. They do not include Internet-based services unless stated otherwise.
• TVOD refers to transactional video-on-demand service. It is an Internet-based service model in which a client pays for specific content but generally does not pay to access the service itself (e.g., iTunes, Microsoft Movies & TV, and the PlayStation Network).