Buying local isn’t just about groceries — it’s TV, too
Buying local is the new normal across Canada thanks to President Trump’s announced tariffs and threats of more to come. Not just for groceries, but for everything. Members of the Quebec National Assembly and patriotic consumers across the country are calling for a boycott of American streaming platforms. But are Canadians really swapping favourite streamers like Netflix and Disney+ for such homegrown options as CBC Gem, ICI TOU.TV, illico+ and Crave?
Christiane Asselin, Radio-Canada’s head of content and programming for ICI TOU.TV, the public broadcaster’s French-language streaming service, says January 2025 was a record month for ratings.
But she’s not ready to credit U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff spree and threats to Canada’s sovereignty alone for sparking the huge “wave of love.”
“It isn’t like the grocery store where you can see U.S. brands of pasta left on the shelf while shelves of Canadian brands are empty,” says Asselin. “Yes, we’re certainly seeing record consumption levels, but is it because of the winter weather or because we’ve got shows that people really want to see? It’s never easy to pinpoint one specific reason.”
Source: CBC
Subscriptions have certainly been growing at CBC Gem, CBC’s streaming service. “Between January 15 – February 15, 2025, new CBC Gem subscribers (free and premium) increased by 40 percent compared to the previous year,” says PR Manager, News, Digital and Industry for CBC Tanya Koivusalo.
Viewing time was also up, by 66 percent.
The program with the greatest ratings surge is Schitt’s Creek, up a staggering 166 percent. The public broadcaster’s satirical current-affairs show This Hour Has 22 Minutes, which has been making fun of the news since 1993, enjoyed a ratings spike of 88 percent year-over-year for the same period. With a full slate of content devoted to Canada-U.S. relations, the five most recent episodes of This Hour drew the fall-winter season’s largest audiences so far.
Videotron’s French-language content streamer illico+ prefers not to share its ratings, citing their “commercial and confidential” nature. And while Crave didn’t give us their numbers for the beginning of 2025, the Bell Media streamer’s subscriptions says it hit the 3.6-million mark in 2024, up 18 percent over 2023.
Goodbye Netflix?
Notwithstanding all this national rah-rah, a new Léger poll shows Canadians are having a harder time getting rid of Netflix than giving up Heinz ketchup. Some 28 percent of respondents said they had cancelled or planned to cancel their American streaming subscriptions. Another 34 percent, however, are staying put.
By comparison, out of the 1,590 Canadians surveyed between February 7 and 10, 2025, more than half, 56 percent, intended to cancel trips or avoid travel to the U.S., while 59 percent said they would boycott American alcohol.
An upsurge of Canadian pride...even in Quebec!
One interesting poll shows Quebec with the highest percentage of respondents among Canadians willing to ditch U.S. streaming services: 36 percent compared to 14 percent in Alberta, the province with the lowest percentage.
Patriotic feelings are particularly high in Quebec. In an Angus Reid poll, 58 percent of Québécois said they are “proud” or “very proud” to be Canadian, up a full 13 points in a matter of weeks, even more than the Canadian average which rose just nine points from 58 to 67 percent.
This U-turn in Quebec nationalism comes as no surprise to Professor Johanne Brunet of HEC Montréal.
“American movies and television are part of everyday life in English Canada,” says Brunet. “But they don’t have a star system of their own, like we do in Quebec, and historically they haven’t treated culture the same way.” She adds that, in Quebec, boycotting American platforms “isn’t that much of a sacrifice, whereas for the [rest of Canada] it’s huge.”
Taking on the international giants
Why opt for local content on local platforms? For Radio-Canada’s Asselin, a television program or series is a cultural object, just like a book or a play.
“It represents us, our values, our way of life. Sure, you can get Série noire on Netflix. But Netflix picked up the series when it was already complete and bought it on the cheap. They don’t even commission made-in-Quebec series,” she says. “And they don’t support our culture, our writers, our directors, our actors or our music.”
Some would argue that placing Canadian content on foreign platforms gives it greater visibility. But Asselin says this comes at a price. “It means handing the keys to our culture over to Americans. The day Netflix decides to make a program that is set here we won’t have any say about our own culture anymore. It’ll be in their hands. We’ll have lost our cultural autonomy.”
Asselin also points out the challenges faced by local platforms trying to reach people on their smart TVs, the kind of TVs more than half of Canadians own.
“When you buy a connected TV today it comes with Amazon Prime and Netflix pre-installed,” she says. “But not with TOU.TV, Crave, or illico+. Getting viewers to download their apps is just one more barrier our streamers have to overcome on any already lopsided playing field.”
She’d like to see Ottawa table legislation to deal with this imbalance.
A major public awareness offensive
To counter recent trade-war threats, three networks — Noovo, Radio-Canada, and Télé-Québec — are running a joint campaign promoting how important it is to watch or listen to Canadian content on Canadian media platforms. Some 30 Canadian media outlets have joined the campaign to date.
Bell Media’s Crave is also promoting itself as “Proudly Canadian,” most recently during Super Bowl LIX, by highlighting original series “made in Canada, by Canadians,” including the Leonard Cohen miniseries So Long, Marianne, a docuseries about the Montreal Canadiens, the hockey comedy Shoresy, and Canada’s Drag Race.
CBC also launched its “Always Here for Canada” campaign on its various platforms and social media.
While the impact these initiatives will have on Canadian consumption of local content remains to be seen, one thing is clear.
“The current movement isn’t just a flash in the pan,” says Brunet. “It represents a deep-seated belief in the need to control our media environment by voting with our dollars. We don’t know how long it will last, but there are sure to be lasting changes in our viewing habits. People are discovering Canadian series and platforms in a whole new way. And that’s a very good thing.”
