A unified, cross-device, & strongly branded content streaming experience can lift usage on all owned digital platforms.
CBC is Canada’s national public broadcaster for both television and radio. In March 2019, CBC launched a new streaming service called CBC Gem which replaced their on-site media library and is now available on Fire TV, Android TV, and iOS apps. Prior to March 2019, CBC hosted its TV & longform video content in a website media library and a mobile phone app. These were separately branded and separate user experiences. No OTT was offered.
In March 2019, CBC sunset its web-based media library called ‘Watch CBC’. At that time, Watch CBC averaged 1.5 Million visits per month.
That month, CBC moved its web-based content to a web app called ‘CBC Gem’. It averaged 2.4 Million visits per month in 2020. Naturally, COVID-19 influenced the increased viewership in 2020. Nevertheless, the new web app was a big success.
Not only was the web app a success on its own, its launch also drastically increased the usership of the CBC Gem Mobile app. Giving users a unified mobile & web experience increased usership of the mobile app by more than 3x, from 37K MAU to 124K MAU.
Gem is also now the CBC’s OTT offering as well.