CRTC proposes indefinite licence terms for 1,010 Canadian broadcasting services

This regulatory shift removes the only mandatory public forum where Canadian broadcasters must account for their performance, effectively making oversight a reactive rather than proactive process. For the broader streaming and audio ecosystem, it signals a move toward administrative streamlining that may inadvertently shield niche subscription services from public scrutiny. The Consumers Council of Canada and the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications argue this reduces compliance pressure on a sector with a history of licence breaches. Watch for the CRTC's final decision on BNoC 2026-115 to see if the pay audio service is granted an exception similar to the CBC.

The CRTC's move toward indefinite licence terms arrives amid a broader regulatory recalibration of how Canada governs its broadcasting sector. In June 2025, the commission issued Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2025-196, establishing a new framework for online streaming services under the Online Streaming Act (Bill C-11), which requires platforms like Netflix, YouTube, and Spotify to contribute to Canadian content funds. That framework created a parallel licensing regime for digital services while the CRTC simultaneously streamlines oversight of traditional broadcasters, raising questions about whether the commission is stretching its enforcement capacity across both fronts.

The business implications of indefinite terms extend beyond administrative convenience. The Consumers Council of Canada and the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications have both filed interventions arguing that removing scheduled renewals eliminates the primary mechanism through which the public can hold broadcasters accountable for Canadian content obligations and other licence conditions. The CRTC's own compliance data shows that between 2019 and 2024, the commission issued 47 decisions finding broadcasters in non-compliance with various licence conditions, yet enforcement actions remained limited. Without the periodic renewal process as a forcing function, critics argue that compliance monitoring becomes entirely dependent on third-party complaints, a model that has proven insufficient in other regulatory contexts. The pay audio service included in the 1,010 licences is particularly notable because subscription audio services compete directly with unregulated streaming platforms that face no equivalent Canadian content requirements.

The technical and market context for this decision reflects a global trend toward lighter-touch broadcasting regulation. Ofcom in the United Kingdom announced in March 2026 that it would reduce the frequency of licence compliance reviews for commercial radio from every five years to every seven, citing reduced risk profiles in a mature market. Australia's ACMA similarly moved to a risk-based licensing model in 2025 that eliminated mandatory renewal hearings for services with clean compliance records. These international precedents suggest the CRTC is following a pattern of regulatory modernization, though the Canadian approach is more aggressive in scope, applying indefinite terms to over 1,000 services simultaneously rather than tiering them by risk profile. The distinction matters because risk-based models preserve the commission's ability to trigger reviews when performance indicators deteriorate, whereas the CRTC's blanket approach removes that trigger entirely unless a formal complaint is filed.