CBC/Radio-Canada has gone to Federal Court to stop an order that would force it to reveal how many people actually pay for its Gem streaming service.
The Canadian Press reports that the federal information commissioner told CBC to release the number of Gem’s paid subscribers after Ottawa law professor Matt Malone requested it under access-to-information laws. Instead of complying, CBC is fighting back.
President Marie-Philippe Bouchard said the figures are “sensitive commercial information.” She argued that keeping them secret protects CBC’s business deals — like when it negotiates bundles with other streaming services.
“The public broadcaster is charged with making some of our budget out of commercial relationships,” Bouchard told The Canadian Press. “And that has to be played according to the rules of the market. And so we’re finding ourselves, with this ruling, uncomfortable with the interpretation.”
CBC said releasing the numbers could harm its competitive position. But Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard rejected that argument. In her final report, she wrote that while the numbers relate to programming, they also relate to CBC’s administration—meaning the broadcaster can’t use that as an excuse to hide them.
Maynard said CBC “did not demonstrate that there was a reasonable expectation that these harms could occur, well beyond a mere possibility.”
The public broadcaster’s push for secrecy raises questions: are the Gem subscriber numbers simply too embarrassing to share? For an organization funded by taxpayers, trying to keep basic audience data hidden doesn’t reflect transparency—it looks defensive.
CBC launched Gem in 2018 with both free and paid tiers. The paid version costs $5.99 a month and offers ad-free viewing along with a stream of CBC News Network.
Even Bouchard downplayed the importance of paid users, admitting, “Paid subscribers are not what makes Gem. Gem is mainly a free-to-user service.” If the paid side is just a ‘commodity,’ why fight so hard in court (and spend taxpayer dollars) to keep those numbers secret?
In the last couple of fiscal years (2023–2024 and 2024–2025), CBC/Radio-Canada actually turned things around with net gains of $40.5 million and $18.6 million CAD, adding up to about $59 million overall—mostly from government cash, a nice ad bump from the Olympics, and some smart cost-cutting. Sure, they took a $125 million hit the year before (2022–2023), but fresh federal bucks (your tax dollars) have kept them afloat despite the usual headaches like shrinking ad revenue.
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