Earlier this year, CBC/Radio-Canada became a full member of the European Broadcasting Union.
As an associate member of the EBU since 1950, CBC/Radio-Canada has collaborated with European public broadcasters on journalism, standards and technology, and built productive partnerships with leading EBU Members.
Full membership enables CBC/Radio-Canada to participate in the Eurovision News Exchange, continue its work on the development of the Media eXchange Layer, and enter the Eurovision Song Contest.
TVBEurope spoke to Leon Mar, CBC/Radio-Canada’s senior director, public affairs and corporate spokesperson, and François Legrand, senior director, Innovation Hub, to find out what European broadcasters can learn from the organisation’s experiences of pushing technological boundaries.
What was the reasoning behind CBC/Radio-Canada’s decision to join the European Broadcasting Union?
Leon Mar: CBC/Radio-Canada has actually been a part of the EBU since 1950, as an associate member. Our new status as a full member reflects a mutual interest: We wanted to deepen our relationship with the EBU, and EBU members recognised the value that CBC/Radio-Canada’s full membership would bring to the Union—including stronger collaboration on trusted journalism, platform accountability and content exchange.
How closely have you worked with the EBU prior to becoming a member, and what did that involve?
Leon Mar: We have a long history of sharing our research, best practices, experiences and expertise with other EBU members. We’ve also contributed to the Eurovision News Exchange and taken part in EBU committees, working groups, meetings and assemblies—but limited by our status as an associate member.
Now, as a full member, CBC/Radio-Canada has access to the entire breadth of EBU collaboration, and we’re eager for the opportunity to work more and more closely with our European peers.
How will full membership benefit Canadian viewers?
Leon Mar: Full membership means full participation in the Eurovision News Exchange, which allows us to offer Canadians more high-quality international news on topics or events that we sometimes can’t cover for logistical or budgetary reasons; they’ll see a greater variety of perspectives from a greater number and diversity of sources.
And as a full member, we’re now eligible to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC). Starting with the 2027 edition in Bulgaria, Canadians will not only be able to continue watching and voting in the ESC (along with people from 148 other countries), they’ll have the added excitement of seeing their own country represented on stage. Canadian talent will be showcased on one of the biggest music stages in the world.
How can CBC/Radio-Canada and other EBU members work together on technological challenges facing the broadcast industry?
François Legrand: As Leon pointed out, we already have a long history of collaboration with the EBU. For example, CBC/Radio-Canada was one of the original participants of the New Builders Community of Practice, which established the blueprint for what modern new production facilities should be. More recently, together with other EBU members, we co-authored the reference architecture for the Dynamic Media Facility (DMF)—a common architecture to help transform media facilities from fixed, hardware-centric environments to flexible ones based on software infrastructure.
We then went on to create our own system, inspired by the DMF concept, which we call the Universal Production Platform. It’s a new system for producing live content that will give CBC/Radio-Canada flexibility to adapt to evolving media trends and allow us to better connect with our audiences.
What would you say those challenges are?
François Legrand: For some media organisations, the transition to IP infrastructure hasn’t been as smooth as it could have been—some have decided to pause their migration efforts, while others have decided to delay their investments. Having legacy infrastructure also puts them behind in the transition to software-based infrastructure, as well as AI-infused workflows.
How will membership help expose Canadian technological expertise to the European TV industry?
François Legrand: CBC/Radio‑Canada has shared its expertise and innovation with the EBU over many decades.
When we opened the Nouvelle Maison de Radio-Canada in Montréal in 2022, we were one of the first in the industry to implement end-to-end ST2110 IP broadcast technology in a multiplatform (ie digital, radio and TV) facility. Based on our experience, we contributed to the development of the EBU’s Live IP Software Toolkit (LIST), a suite of tools designed to measure and inspect live IP traffic. Our engineers then relied on LIST to help troubleshoot and optimise the network in the final phases of implementation at the Maison de Radio-Canada.
More broadly, Canada hosts a vibrant media production ecosystem, with companies such as Grass Valley, Ross Video, Evertz Microsystems, Matrox Video, and Haivision headquartered near CBC/Radio-Canada’s production hubs in Montréal and Toronto. Other companies, such as Riedel, Imagine Communications, and Clear-Com, maintain significant local research and development operations here, while also operating independently in European markets. CBC/Radio-Canada’s central position within this ecosystem, together with our technical expertise, allows us to help align these vendors with the broader EBU community toward common objectives.
What can European members learn from CBC/Radio-Canada?
François Legrand: We’ve been in regular contact and conversations with each other for decades, learning from each other. Before building the Nouvelle Maison de Radio-Canada in Montréal, we learned a lot from projects that were already underway elsewhere.
For instance, we had very open discussions with the project teams that were working on the BBC Cymru Wales New Broadcasting House, SRG SSR’s new building in Zurich, and BCE’s headquarters in Luxembourg. They helped us avoid certain missteps and benefit from their experiences, such as how to build ST2110 facilities at scale. We have, in turn, paid it forward by sharing our lessons learned with EBU members through site visits and conference presentations. And, since 2020, we have welcomed more than 150 delegations from other broadcasters around the world to tour our facilities.
I would also add that as a leader in the transition to software-based production and an active contributor to the Media eXchange Layer (MXL) project, we’ve published tutorials on GitHub to help other organisations experiment with MXL.
In what ways will full membership help overcome challenges around disinformation and strengthen trust in journalism?
Leon Mar: A good example is the Eurovision News Exchange. As an associate member of the EBU, we had limited access to this platform. Now, as a full member, we’re creating an integrated news desk to manage our full participation in the News Exchange. This desk will work across both CBC News, our English-language news service, and Radio-Canada Info, our French-language service. Ultimately, our enhanced participation in the News Exchange will allow more Canadian news and perspectives to reach audiences in Europe, in addition to bringing more international coverage to Canadians.
How likely is CBC/Radio-Canada to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest?
Leon Mar: It’s not just likely, it’s a certainty. On July 1, together with the EBU, we announced Canada’s participation in next year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Bulgaria.
