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Historic Audiences Turned to CBC for the Canadian Federal Leaders’ Debates on April 16 and 17

Historic Audiences Turned to CBC for the Canadian Federal Leaders' Debates on April 16 and 17

2.6 million Canadians tuned in to the English-language debate on CBC and CBC News Network on April 17

CBC’s broadcast of the English debate was the most-watched primetime program in Canada on April 17, with an average audience of 1.24 million - up 29 per cent compared to the last English debate in 2021

850,000 listeners tuned in to CBC Radio for coverage of the English debate, an increase of 80 per cent compared to 2021

There were 3 million unique visitors to cbcnews.ca and the CBC News App on April 17, with video views up 85 per cent over the 2021 debate

 1.26 million tuned in to the French-language debate on CBC News Network, more than double the 2021 French debate, with the average audience also up 285 per cent

Historic audiences tuned in on all CBC platforms for the French- and English-language Canadian federal leaders’ debates on Wednesday, April 16 and Thursday, April 17, with strong growth noted on all platforms for both debates compared to the last federal leaders’ debates in September 2021.

Wednesday, April 16 - CBC Audience Highlights for the French-language debate 

  • 1.26 million Canadians tuned in to CBC News Network, more than double the number that tuned in for the French-language federal leaders’ debate on September 8, 2021. 
  • The 2+ average minute audience of 458,000 was also 285 per cent higher than 2021's audience of 119,000.
  • Streams of the French debate on cbcnews.ca increased by 476 per cent compared to the 2021 French debate. 
  • Live views on CBC News’ YouTube channel were up 80 per cent compared to the 2021 French debate.

Thursday, April 17 - CBC Audience Highlights for the English-language debate

  • Over 2.6 million Canadians tuned in to CBC and CBC News Network for the English-language federal leaders’ debate.
  • CBC was the most-watched network for the debate and CBC’s broadcast of the debate was the most-watched primetime program in Canada on April 17. 
  • CBC and CBC News Network drew a combined 2+ average minute audience of 1.24 million, an increase of 29 per cent compared to the broadcast of the last English-language federal leaders’ debate on September 9, 2021.
  • 850,000 Canadians tuned in to CBC Radio for coverage of the English-language debate, an increase of 80 per cent compared to the 2021 debate.
  • There were 3 million unique visitors to cbcnews.ca and the CBC News App on April 17, with video views up 85 per cent from September 9, 2021, the date of the last English-language debate.
  • The English debate was also streamed more than 700,000 times across cbcnews.ca, the CBC News App, CBC Gem, CBC News YouTube and CBC News TikTok.
  • On the CBC News YouTube channel, the English debate livestream captured 384,700 total views, and was the second-highest livestream by watch time since the beginning of the year, after then-Prime Minister Trudeau’s announcement of Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on February 1. 

CBC News’ “Canada Votes” coverage continues across all platforms in the lead up to election day on Monday, April 28, including the ongoing free preview of CBC News Network on television, CBC Gem, CBCNews.ca and the CBC News app through May 5, providing more Canadians with full access to breaking news coverage, crucial analysis and key interviews.

CBC/Radio-Canada was named the Debates Producer for the 2025 debates after an RFP process launched by the Leaders’ Debates Commission. The producers were contracted to produce, promote and distribute two debates, one in French and one in English. The debates were presented as unbranded productions with a goal to achieve wide distribution across television, radio and digital media. 

CBC Research Sources:

April 16 French debate: 

CBC News Network: Numeris TV PPM, CBC News Network, Wednesday April 16th, 2025 vs September 8, 2021, P2+, A25-54 & A30-49, Wed 6p-8p, Total Canada, AMA & Reach, generated by InstarAnalytics.

cbcnews.ca: Adobe Analytics, CBC Production, Segments: “CBC.ca” and “Total News App”, April 16, 2025, Content Starts and Content Time Spent / Content Start

CBC News YouTube: YouTube Studio, realtime views. Data reflects Debate duration only, 6p-8p, April 16, 2025. Data is unconfirmed

April 17 English debate: 

CBC and CBC News Network: Numeris TV Meter, April 17, 2025, CBC Main Network & CBC News Network, A2+, Thursday 7p-9p, Total Canada, AMA/Cume Reach generated by InfoSys+TV (UNCONFIRMED)

CBC Radio: Numeris Radio Meter, April 17, 2025, Radio One, P2+, Th 7p-9p ET (manually calculated for all time zones), Total Canada, AMA, DlyRch, TotMins (converted to hours), generated by InstarRadio PPM (UNCONFIRMED)

CBCNews.ca and CBC News App: Adobe Analytics, CBC Production, April 17th, 2025 vs April 1 - 16, 2025 and Sept 9, 2021. Segments: CBC.ca + Content News OR Total News App, Content News. Metrics: Unique Visitors, Total Hours Spent, Content Starts, Total Time Spent per User

CBC News YouTube: YouTube analytics, CBC News channel, Watch the federal leaders only English-language debate. Data reflects total LIVE metrics for Thursday, April 17, 2025 only. Date reflecting live views by ranking based on January 1 - April 19, 2025 dates, filter “live” CBC News channel. 

CBC News TikTok: Tiktok LIVE Center video analysis analytics, CBC News profile. The “English Language Federal Debate” live stream was published on April 17, 2025 at 7:02PM running 3h58m in length. The comparison stream, “French Language Debate” live stream was published on April 16, 2025 at 6:00PM running 3h57m in length. Total engagements are an aggregate of likes+comments+shares.

CBC Gem: Adobe Analytics, CBC Production, April 17th, 2025. Segments: OTT Segment, Content News. Metrics: Content Starts.

 

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About CBC/Radio-Canada

CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada’s national public broadcaster. Through our mandate to inform, enlighten and entertain, we play a central role in strengthening Canadian culture. As Canada’s trusted news source, we offer a uniquely Canadian perspective on news, current affairs and world affairs. Our distinctively homegrown entertainment programming draws audiences from across the country. Deeply rooted in communities, CBC/Radio-Canada offers diverse content in English, French and eight Indigenous languages: Dëne Sųłıné, Dene Kǝdǝ́, Dene Zhatıé, Eastern Cree, Dinjii Zhuʼ Ginjik, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun and Tłı̨chǫ. We also deliver content in Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Punjabi and Tagalog, as well as both official languages, through Radio Canada International (RCI). We are leading the transformation to meet the needs of Canadians in a digital world.

For media inquiries, please contact:

Tanya Koivusalo, CBC PR

tanya.koivusalo@cbc.ca 

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