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The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

CBC / Radio–Canada

Challenged with a rapidly evolving industry, the CBC is looking at modernizing processes to establish long term viability.


Client


The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation / Radio–Canada is Canada’s National Public Broadcaster. Operating in both French and English, CBC / Radio–Canada offers a variety of programing on radio and television funded through tax dollars and commercial activities.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation / Radio-Canada

The broadcasting industry is changing and public broadcasters are not immune. Content acquisition and distribution is evolving under threat from multiple angles.

Asked to strategically define a digital platform, we’ve set out to modernize how content is bought and sold.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation / Radio-Canada

Challenge


The CBC is a complex organization. Like many Public Service Broadcasters, they are funded partially through public funds. Accountability to the Canadian public is paramount as is the mandate to distribute domestic content —integral to communicating Canadian culture internationally through Television and Radio.

Advertising dollars follow engagement, and 2017 marks the first year that the Digital ad spend will outpace that of Television. With the traditional TV model experiencing increasing competitive pressure from Digital alternatives, the CBC and other broadcasters are facing tough decisions.

Streaming Video on Demand (SVOD) services like Netflix, offer consumers choice that turns the linear TV model upside down. Metrics that were used to sell ad time on TV are meaningless to SVOD providers. Disintermediation provides digital platforms a way to capture consumer and behavioural data enabling growth & retention —providing scale and subscriber churn reduction.

To continue to act on the cultural mandate of the CBC is increasingly challenging and moving forward, Digital plays a pivotal role in content acquisition and distribution.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation / Radio-Canada

Solution


The Media Solutions department of the CBC was presented with a true platform strategy to compliment and bridge existing business practises. By utilizing a platform with network dynamics and externalized resources, the CBC stands to ease development costs, minimize investment, and maximize revenue.

A clear and focused monetization model utilizing a solid user acquisition strategy provides attainable growth potential with eyes on platform scale.

The PSB mandate is reinforced through exposing relevant Canadian content to external buyers and providing sellers the opportunity to seek out international markets whose audiences display enthusiastic appetites.