The public broadcaster was ordered by the information commissioner in July to disclose the number of paid subscribers to Gem.Tijana Martin/The Canadian Press
CBC/Radio-Canada is going to court to defend its refusal to disclose subscriber numbers for its Gem streaming service.
The move comes after the information commissioner ordered CBC to make available the number of paid subscribers to Gem.
A spokesperson said the public broadcaster believes the information commissioner’s interpretation of the law is wrong.
“We will make our case in our filing with the Federal Court and let the court decide,” Leon Mar said in an email.
Matt Malone, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa, first asked for the information in an access-to-information request.
When CBC refused, citing exemptions for programming activities and information that could harm its competitive position, Malone appealed to the federal information commissioner. The information commissioner disagreed with the CBC, and in July ordered the public broadcaster to disclose the numbers.
The fact that the CBC is willing to go to court is “a very interesting use of CBC’s precious resources,” Malone said.
“In my opinion, it’s a sad but telling attempt to dodge basic transparency.”
Malone argued CBC’s refusal to comply with the order sets a bad precedent, “especially for the CBC journalists who still use the access-to-information requests as part of their journalistic work and try to get disclosure from federal institutions.”
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CBC launched the streaming service, which has paid and free versions, in 2018. The paid version, which costs $5.99 a month, includes ad-free on-demand streaming and a stream of CBC’s 24-hour news channel, CBC News Network.
Mar said CBC does not disclose either the paid or unpaid subscriber numbers.
Kaan Yigit, principal at the market research company The Strategic Counsel, noted not releasing Canadian subscriber numbers has “become a bit of an industry practice.”
He said the company’s research indicates Gem garners “respectable numbers on a weekly basis in the same range as Bell’s Crave and a bit better than Paramount+ and Tubi.”
However, those numbers would be for all users, with paying subscribers likely making up a smaller subset.
Given the number of streaming services available, some of which have implemented recent price increases, “it would not be surprising that paid subscribers would only be a small portion of their base as consumers are trying to balance free and paid tier streaming subscriptions and some with cable,” Yigit said in an email.
“Why take a paid tier when you can have much of what they offer for free?”
