2025 Upfronts Unpacked: French Canada

Back again to wrap up the Upfronts with a look at our fun and fancy French Canadians and our take on the Quebec market and insights from this year’s upfronts.

Quebec is an integral market in Canada with 22% of the Canadian population and the 2nd largest population after Ontario.

Key Takeaways:

Nothing new… Quebecers love local content and their local stars and we have the stats to prove it

• 100% of Top 20 programs in Québec are Québec productions
• +25% advertising effectiveness with a Québec spokesperson
• +38% engagement with advertising in Québec
• Loyal to content and most shows have a long run with many running over 10 years

Linear TV is still King in Québec

• 94% of time spent watching TV is in French
• 89.7% Reach Adults 18+
• 25.4 hours spent watching weekly

Live Sports, Montreal Canadiens and Québec centric tent pole events are a massive draw for appointment viewing

• NFL, Super Bowl, F1 Grand Prix du Canada and CFL-Montréal Alouettes round out Top Live Sports
• Montréal Canadiens dominate the market with strong viewership on both TVA Sports and RDS during the regular season and even more so when they are in the Playoffs
• Radio-Canada’s Bye Bye and La Soirée Du 31 is the TV event of the year with over 4 million viewers tuning in last year
• Galas shine a light on Québec’s finest talent and draw over 800,000 Quebecers

Streaming is being adopted slowly in Québec

Based on Adults 18+ weekly Reach:

• 34% view Linear only
• 7% view Streaming only
• 57% view Linear + Streaming
• 2% do not watch TV

Linear TV and their streaming services dominate both reaches, averaging between 61 and 74% and time spent averaging between 3 and 9 hours per week

Netflix, Prime, Disney and Crave have low reach in Quebec averaging between 10 and 44% and time spent with less than an hour per week – this is definitely driven by lack of home-grown Quebec content on these services

And that’s a wrap for the 2025 Upfronts.  If you’d like a deeper dive into the French Upfronts or a customized POV for your brand, feel free to reach out to me or anyone on the Involved Media team.