Accountability Plan

Our Performance - MEDIA LINES

Radio-Canada Highlights

DELIVERING COMPELLING CANADIAN CONTENT WITH A FOCUS ON INDIGENOUS REALITIES

This year, Radio-Canada revamped its strategy for ICI TOU.TV and its EXTRA package. With ease of discovery, ease of use, and audience retention and engagement as our guides, we focused on programming, with strategies built around exclusive content and premieres. We sought more strategic partnerships and continued to improve the technology powering our platforms. ICI TOU.TV established itself as a go-to destination for Canadians by giving them what they wanted, such as continuing access to episodes of our hit series during the Olympic Games, generating exclusive online content and premiering original content like Cheval-Serpent, which broke audience records for streaming views during the summer.¹

During the year, we put forward a series of initiatives to reflect and strengthen Indigenous voices and cultures in our programming across platforms: Stanley Vollant : De Compostelle à Kuujjuaq, the documentaries Rite de Passage and Rumble, and segments in our regular news programing like the Téléjournal 22h. The Espaces autochtones online portal celebrated its first anniversary with strong audience figures and digital content shared across platforms.²

Radio-Canada used some of the government’s increased funding to enrich the lineup on all of its platforms, paying close attention to meeting audiences needs. New drama offerings like Olivier and Hubert et Fanny explored original themes and joined Les pays d’en haut and Tout le monde en parle as standout shows in our lineup. District 31 continued its impressive viewership numbers, increasing its daily audience to an average of 1.4 million. This success spilled over to ICI TOU.TV, where viewers caught up on the first season.³ Viva culture, the initial product of the Radio-Canada cultural strategy, was rolled out during the holiday season. New Year’s Eve programming once again featured a slate of specials, culminating with Bye bye 2017, which drew a combined audience of 4.9 million viewers, its largest audience ever.

On radio, ICI PREMIÈRE strengthened its lineup with several high-profile hosts debuting during the summer: Stéphane Bureau filled in on Medium Large, Jean-René Dufort on Bienvenue en 2067, Julie Snyder presented 5 à 7 aux Îles … avec Julie, and Marc Labrèche did the honours for C’est le plus beau jour de ma vie. ICI MUSIQUE continued in its vital role as a supporter of Canadian music, with exclusive album launches featuring artists like Fanny Bloom, Dumas and Ariane Moffatt.

PROPELLING THE TRANSFORMATION OF NEWS AND INFORMATION

With a focus on local stories, Radio-Canada’s regional newsrooms produced varied content for our digital platforms. Examples include the magazine-format Embarquement vers les régions du Québec and Les Portraits du Manitoba, a graphic-novel format documentary on Raïf Badawi, and the Voir l’Ontario portal.

Rad, our news laboratory, was launched this year and it very quickly made a name for itself in the rapidly changing digital news and information landscape. Highly creative and linking our corporate values and journalistic credibility with the values of engagement and authenticity, Rad has established itself as a force for change in journalism.⁴

The past year also saw a refocusing of the mission of our flagship news programs. The Téléjournal 22h is now more than ever a daily news destination for audiences, highlighting the day’s top stories with in-depth analyses and solution-oriented discussions with subject matter experts.⁵

REINFORCING OUR COMMITMENT TO DIGITAL

The in-depth revamp of the ICI Radio-Canada.ca website made content easier to access on mobile devices, as did the upgrade of our mobile Apps. Talk radio joined the move to mobile with ICI PREMIÈRE, where audiences can catch up on missed shows, access exclusive content from documentary series, podcasts and audiobooks, and also access archived material. ICI MUSIQUE’s digital presence was bolstered by the launch of a new digital-only classical music stream.

Radio-Canada’s distinctive sports brand was prominent across digital platforms with the launch of the Podium portal and live broadcasts of several high-profile amateur competitions on our website and social media platforms. After the conclusion of this year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Radio-Canada PyeongChang 2018 mobile App became the Radio-Canada Sports App.

We continue to promote a culture of innovation. With the second Radio-Canada Hackathon, spotlighting artificial intelligence, and the presentation of Regards sur l’innovation, a day of conferences focusing on emerging digital technologies, we are continuing to foster ties with the tech community. Radio-Canada also signed a partnership agreement with the Institute for Data Valorization (IVADO) to promote young researcher participation in its projects in advanced audience metrics, helping to facilitate the recruitment of highly qualified data-science resources.

RADIO-CANADA 2017-2018 RESULTS

Radio

The combined all-day audience share of ICI PREMIÈRE and ICI MUSIQUE reached a new record level, surpassing the target for the year. Building on last year’s successes, our schedule retained loyal listeners while efforts to attract new listeners with original programming enabled us to make gains across our radio markets.

Television

ICI RADIO-CANADA TÉLÉ recorded its best prime-time audience share since the launch of the measure by Numeris in 2004. While the industry continues to experience declines in conventional TV audiences, we succeeded again this year to attract audiences’ attention and increase our market share. This growth in viewership can be attributed to both returning top performers, such as District 31, Tout le monde en parle and En direct de l’univers, and new drama series such as Hubert et Fanny, Cheval-Serpent and Olivier. During the winter, our new variety show 1^res fois, an original Canadian format hosted by audience favourite Véronique Cloutier, saw viewership grow weekly and led its time slot.

On specialty channels, our combined audience share of 4.7% finished the year above target. ICI RDI’s performance was driven by the coverage of unprecedented floods in Quebec, and international climatic events throughout the spring and summer. Local elections in Quebec and Montreal’s 375^th anniversary also helped achieve strong audiences. ICI ARTV’s performance was particularly strong during the winter, with the return of the nostalgia series Le temps d’une paix and the premiere TV broadcast of the digital drama Fatale-Station. ICI EXPLORA maintained its audience share, thanks to the return of shows closely associated with the brand such as Sexplora and Les aventures du Pharmachien.

Regional

Regional morning radio show results exceeded target, with ICI PREMIERE ranking first in three markets.¹³

The weekly supper-hour newscasts exceeded target and last year’s result, with out-of-Montreal markets performing particularly well this year.

Digital

More and more Canadians use Radio-Canada’s digital properties as their destinations for compelling and diverse content. Our digital platforms achieved a monthly average of 4.1 million unique visitors.¹⁴ A revamped mobile-friendly Radio-Canada.ca, with innovative and distinct regional content, also contributed to these results. 65% of unique visitors accessed our digital content with their mobile devices, an increase from 53% last year.¹⁴ Both all-property and regional reaches surpassed targets in 2017-2018.

Revenue

Although operating in a challenging advertising market for traditional media, Radio-Canada managed to significantly grow self-generated revenue and exceeded target. Advertisers increased their spending on ICI RADIO-CANADA TÉLÉ by 5% over the past year, while our digital properties grew advertising revenue by 18%.¹⁵ These impressive results are mainly due to our strong media performance, which enabled us to reach higher volume of impressions on both television and digital screens.