Canadians are far more likely to rely on Netflix and YouTube to watch documentaries than the CBC, a government study reveals.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, a Canadian Heritage study titled Canadian’s Awareness and Perception of the NFB (National Film Board) found that only 2% of Canadians said they rely on the public broadcaster for their documentary watching.
25% of those polled picked Netflix as their top destination to watch documentaries while 12% picked YouTube. Amazon Prime and Disney were each preferred to 4% of respondents.
The National Film Board itself, also scored poorly with only 2% of respondents saying they used their web or cell application to stream NFB content.
More Canadians were also likely to spontaneously mention Disney (37%), Pixar (17%) and National Geographic (11%) as their go-to animation and documentary film source than CBC (9%).
When asked whether they were even aware of the NFB, 39% responded in the negative. Meanwhile, 47% said they were definitely aware of the public film and digital media producer while 15% said it sounded familiar.
“Compared to the results from the previous edition of the study, fewer respondents have mentioned having heard of the NFB (61% compared to 70% in 2017), while more mentioned not having heard of it (36% compared to 30% in 2017),” wrote staff.
42% of those who viewed the NFB as unfavourable were dissatisfied with the productions while 9% had an issue that it was government-funded.
“Among the negative comments mentioned, some respondents have brought up the fact that the productions only reflect certain aspects of Canadian life, that the NFB pushes its own agenda in their productions, that the productions are too niche, and that it is not necessarily a good way to spend public money,” the study read.
The Liberal government is currently pushing through several pieces of legislation which seek to regulate the internet and promote Canadian content to users online.
Bill C-11 recently arrived in the Senate as critics have called for the government to reverse course on the legislation, citing freedom of expression concerns.
