Accountability Plan

Our Performance - MEDIA LINES

FRENCH SERVICES HIGHLIGHTS

We use Media Lines reporting to measure performance against our operational targets, which mostly focus on audience reach and share through our various platforms and self-generated revenue across all our services.

In 2016-2017, thanks to the new government funding, Radio-Canada reinvested in its programming, bringing more compelling Canadian media content to Canadians when and where they want to consume it. We continued telling distinctive stories that bring Canadians together, while acting as an innovative force in the media industry.

CANADIAN CONTENT IS AT THE HEART OF WHAT WE DELIVER AND IT’S SUCCESSFUL

This year, Radio-Canada brought its multiplatform/multiscreen strategy to new levels. Building on last year's successes, we leveraged all of our platforms to maximize interest towards our series and films, sequencing our broadcast on different screens to engage different types of audiences. Exclusive episodes of Ruptures, a successful drama series that first premiered on ICI RADIO-CANADA TÉLÉ, were made available in advance on ICI TOU.TV EXTRA. In the same manner, the new thriller Fatale-Station saw its first episode being aired on ICI RADIO-CANADA TÉLÉ, while the remainder was exclusively available on the digital platform. This contributed to Fatale-Station's success, with total viewership of over 375,000⁽¹⁾ during the first two months.

In total, we launched seven new series on ICI RADIO-CANADA TÉLÉ, including Fatale-Station, Feux, Lâcher prise, Les Simone and the drama District 31, which became an instant success, garnering over 1.2 million viewers on a daily basis. On the radio side, the new government funding translated into 12.5 hours of brand new original programming on week-days on ICI RADIO-CANADA PREMIÈRE, as well as a more diversified and international roster of collaborators on News and Public Affairs shows. Notable additions to the lineup include On dira ce qu'on voudra and Les grands entretiens. We also evolved existing shows such as Plus on est de fous, plus on lit! and Les éclaireurs to enhance our schedule and maximize their impact. The reinvestment and our programming strategy yielded a strong audience share result for ICI RADIO-CANADA PREMIÈRE at 18.1%.⁽²⁾

2016 was also an Olympic year and Radio-Canada, as Canada's official Rio Games broadcaster, deployed maximum efforts to showcase Canadian athletes and Games-related content on all of its platforms. In addition to 2,000 hours of live digital streaming coverage, we aired 278 hours of TV broadcast on ICI RADIO-CANADA TÉLÉ, and more than 9.8 million Canadians tuned in. Our digital content was also popular, with websites and apps garnering 34 million page views.

ACCELERATING OUR DIGITAL SHIFT

In 2016-2017, Radio-Canada embraced mobility to propel its digital strategy with the launch of three brand new mobile applications and major enhancements to existing ones. We completely revamped the ICI RADIO-CANADA PREMIÈRE app, releasing a more visual version, adding archived content and the digital “à la carte” radio ICI PREMIÈRE PLUS in the process. Taking further steps to bring radio content to mobile users, such as those using connected cars, we entered into a partnership with the consortium of radio broadcasters Radioplayer, to make a space for ICI RADIO-CANADA PREMIÈRE and ICI MUSIQUE in their free streaming radio app. We also released the brand new ICI MUSIQUE app, featuring live programming and web radio, and enhanced our infrastructure to support global ICI MUSIQUE's digital services. Finally, on our mobile initiatives, we launched a brand new version of the ICI RADIO-CANADA mobile app, which contributed to the 13% growth in reach of our digital services, with 3.8 million unique visitors accessing our content, as well as l'appli des petits featuring Radio-Canada's shows and games dedicated to kids.

Radio-Canada's digital transformation also involved bringing ICI TOU.TV EXTRA on Apple TV while significantly deepening our offering. This year marks an important milestone for this site with the launch of Vero.tv, a new section containing original and exclusive variety shows, drama series and talk shows featuring or endorsed by Véronique Cloutier. This partnership between the public broadcaster and a high-profile TV personality is a landmark for the Francophone TV ecosystem that is going increasingly digital. Successful series such as Baby-boom and Une chance de trop were also made available sequentially starting in February 2017, boosting both subscription and viewership growth.

Our strong commitment to research, development and risk-taking is a critical asset for the success of our digital transformation. In 2016-2017, Radio-Canada continued to leverage employees' creativity to renew the way we engage with Canadians. For example, we launched three rounds of nominations by L'Accélérateur d'idées, a hub dedicated to the enhancement of our content through the development of tech solutions. The fifth edition's theme, “Radio-Canada at the local level,” saw our digital media team travelling around the country visiting local stations and encouraging employees to find ways to reinforce our relationships with local communities. During the fiscal year, 96 project proposals were assessed with six of them being selected for financing and further development. Other internal R&D initiatives included forming a team dedicated to gaining in-depth knowledge of our audiences' profiles and behaviours to customize and improve consumers' experience. From an external perspective, we reached out to the tech community by organizing our first hackathon at our headquarters in Montreal. Finally, on reinventing the public broadcaster and renewing audiences, we launched RAD, a creative space crossing journalism with digital technologies and aligned with the mission of finding new ways of treating and bringing News and Public Affairs to the younger generations.

An important digital initiative at the heart of our transformation is the digitization of Radio-Canada's 80 years of media archives. Digitization will enable us to showcase our archives on various platforms like Rétroviseur on ICI TOU.TV EXTRA, Aujourd'hui l'histoire on ICI RADIO-CANADA PREMIÈRE, Les archives de Radio-Canada's web portal and Facebook account, or the 360^o mobile application that offers geo-tagged TV and radio stories.

MOBILIZING CANADIANS IN THE PUBLIC SPACE

Radio-Canada continues to create bonds and bring Canadians together by broadcasting special events and creating and relaying content that reflects their particular and common stories. 2017 marks the 150^th anniversary of Confederation and Radio-Canada is committed to be at the heart of the celebrations, mobilizing Canadians from coast to coast to coast. The kick off of the historic anniversary, featuring official ceremonies and fireworks on Parliament Hill, was broadcast live on ICI RDI on New Year's Eve through En direct du 150^e de la Confédération du Canada. Later in the evening, almost four million Canadians rallied around Bye-Bye 2016, and the rest of Radio-Canada's special offering served to ring in the New Year.

Programming on Canada's 150^th anniversary will continue throughout 2017 and Indigenous communities will be at the forefront of the celebrations. During 2016-2017, we have significantly increased our Indigenous offering with the launch of Espaces autochtones, a web portal incorporated in Radio-Canada.ca that is entirely dedicated to Indigenous stories. All Radio-Canada's platforms also featured more exclusive content, such as the 20th anniversary of the National Aboriginal Day and the multiplatform documentary Ce que nous sommes. ICI RADIO-CANADA PREMIÈRE L'heure du monde also spent a week in the North to record shows, engaging with and telling the stories of Indigenous communities.

Radio-Canada's commitment towards mobilizing Canadians also translates into sparking interactions with their public broadcaster and one another. In 2016-2017, Radio-Canada leveraged Facebook Live as a new instrument to distribute exclusive content and engage with digital users. As an example, during la semaine des correspondants, we broadcast exclusive interviews with journalists normally deployed abroad, allowing the public to send questions and share their thoughts on social media.

FRENCH SERVICES 2016-2017 RESULTS

All but one of Radio-Canada's key performance indicators for radio, TV and digital met or exceeded their 2016-2017 targets.

Our performance metrics are evolving as the media industry continues to undergo a digital transformation. Canadians consume media content on multiple devices (e.g. smartphones, tablets, smart TVs) from an ever growing array of content providers. As media consumption habits change, audience measurement suppliers and the Corporation are refining methodologies and introducing new measurement technologies to ensure the accuracy and completeness of data gathered. Since some of these data are used to measure our strategic and operational performance, we may be required to make adjustments to targets and historical results to enhance comparability of the data.

Radio – ICI RADIO-CANADA PREMIÈRE's and ICI MUSIQUE's combined audience share set a new record at 23.3%, which is significantly above this year's target and last year's record result of 21.8%. This strong performance was driven by our reinvestment in content, which translated into 15 additional hours of original programming Monday to Saturday on ICI RADIO-CANADA PREMIÈRE, and also by the fact that it was well received by Francophones.

ICI RADIO-CANADA TÉLÉ – ICI RADIO-CANADA TÉLÉ's reached record levels in 2016-2017. The average prime-time audience share for the regular programming season scored higher than its target at 20.9%. These positive results are due in part to the new daily drama series District 31, which garnered an average audience of 1.2 million throughout both the fall and winter television seasons, thus impacting performance by adding a 1.3 percentage point in audience share for the network as a whole in prime time. Other new additions to the lineup such as Deuxième chance, Lâcher prise and Feux, as well as new seasons of existing shows like Tout le monde en parle, Unité 9, Mémoires vives and Les pays d'en haut outperformed and contributed to the strong performance.

ICI RDI, ICI ARTV, ICI EXPLORA – The three speciality channels recorded a combined audience share of 4.8%, in line with last year's result (4.7%) and this year's target. ICI RDI benefited from the coverage of the US presidential election, while other events on the Quebec political and social scenes boosted audience levels. Original Canadian content added to our schedule contributed to the performance of both ICI ARTV and ICI EXPLORA. ICI ARTV's audiences still rally around the nostalgia series Le temps d'une paix, but the network also benefited from the return of Marc Labrèche as a TV show host on Info, sexe et mensonges. ICI EXPLORA continued its growth in viewership with a mix of new shows such as Les aventures du Pharmachien, and new seasons of returning good performers like Sexplora.

Regional – The regional morning radio shows' results tracked close to target. The weekly supper-hour newscast slightly surpassed its target, exceeding last year's result.

Digital – Canadians continue to turn in large numbers to our digital offering, with average unique monthly visitors of 3.8 million this year. More than half (53%) are now accessing content through mobile devices – from 47% in 2016.¹¹ Content made available on Radio-Canada.ca for the Olympic Games and the US election drew significant attention. Other factors that explained the strong performance are the launch of the new ICI MUSIQUE mobile application and major revamp of ICI RADIO-CANADA PREMIÈRE and ICI RADIO-CANADA information apps. The gain in popularity of our digital television service ICI TOU.TV, to which original and exclusive content was added throughout the fiscal year, also contributed to reaching Canadians. It is worth mentioning that the reach of our regional offering also surpassed its target with 1.4 million unique visitors.

Revenue – Despite a challenging TV advertising market, revenue exceeded its target. Advertising revenues on all platforms recorded better levels than expected. Partnerships and services to independent producers also contributed to the strong performance, while revenues from subscriptions to our TV services and educational portal Curio.ca were higher than expected.