Advertising income for CBC/Radio-Canada has continued to drop and the state broadcaster’s management told Parliament in a recent report that it doesn’t expect things to improve any time soon.
“We expect TV advertising income to continue to decline as TV audiences decrease,” said the CBC’s latest Annual Report. “Sustaining overall advertising revenue in the long term is dependent on digital advertising revenue.”
According to the report, ad revenue dropped to $270,031 this year, compared to $288,640 in 2023.
True North contacted the Crown corporation for more information as to why this might be happening.
Media relations senior specialist Eric Wright told True North that “as CBC/Radio-Canada and others in the Canadian media industry have been saying for some time, the commercial revenue that sustains our industry is declining.”
“Television revenue from advertising and subscribers is shrinking as audiences spend more of their time on digital platforms. And digital revenue can’t make up the difference because 80% of all digital advertising revenue in Canada is going to Meta and Google,” said Wright.
The CBC was also told by a senior government official last week that on the condition of anonymity that the heritage minister would announce a new CEO and mandate next month.
“I am looking forward to soon announcing important steps that will help modernize CBC/Radio-Canada. This is what we committed to Canadians and what Canadians expect,” it said.
“Like the rest of the news and information sector, the public broadcaster is facing a significant drop in commercial revenue due to the dominant role of foreign tech giants in the ad market. As a government, we are working toward strengthening our independent public broadcaster.”
A new mandate may require additional funding, which currently costs the taxpayers $1.4 billion per year.