TORONTO – CBC news and current affairs isn't about to elbow aside Game of Thrones or The Crown in the Canadian over-the-top streaming arena.
But the pubcaster, as it unveiled details on its rebranded CBC Gem streaming platform Tuesday, has underlined how it will work with third party content providers to open up the long tail, in part with an ad-free, premium streaming option.
First up is the Toronto social storytelling startup Wattpad, which helps authors develop projects for film and TV.
"That (Wattpad) deal is more representative of the types of relationships we will continue to create, and the underpinning is a realization that, with this new platform, we can connect with new partners and to expand with existing partners," Gave Lindo (pictured below), executive director of OTT programming at the CBC, told Cartt.ca.
Its very early days for the pact with the online publishing platform, but Lindo explained Wattpad's online community of authors will now exclusively bring their stories to the CBC's rebranded OTT platform.
"It's an arrangement where we will collaborate with them (Wattpad) and they will be selecting and finding creators within their platform that will work with the CBC to create and tell stories," he explained.
Lindo added the goal is getting Canadian writers to develop and produce content for CBC Gem, which is being rebranded 
with 4,000 hours of live and on-demand content.
"A lot of the great creators on their platform are Canadian. And many of those Canadian creators really resonate internationally. So, in this instance, it's really great collaboration in terms of our ability to leverage our strength, and find diverse stories and Canadian storytellers," he said.
The CBC Gem collaboration is a win-win because the CBC brings content delivery, search, storage and billing to the table for the Canadian market, and creates a new pipeline for the online platform's creators.
As well, Wattpad is helping the CBC take the guesswork out of creating engaging online content for its continuing foray into video streaming thanks to its data – which enables the CBC to know just how large the online fan bases for Wattpad storytelling writers are, in order to help build interest in a scripted project.
“We just don't want to work with the same people. We want to expand our base.” Gave Lindo, CBC
So if Canadian writers have content already widely consumed on the Wattpad platform, the CBC has comfort a project may migrate successfully to the CBC Gem platform. "We want to be as innovative as possible and think about how to work with new and emerging voices, and create new stories that we can only explore by working with new folks," Lindo said.
"We just don't want to work with the same people. We want to expand our base," he added.
CBC Gem will either be available to Canadians for free, with ads, or as a $4.99 per-month premium service that offers on-demand content ad-free – in addition to offering cord-cutters and cord-nevers the livestream for the CBC News Network.
The live streaming fare to be offered on CBC Gem is key because Lindo told Cartt.ca that, since launching its streaming service in April 2018, the early experimentation revealed the continuing appeal of live programming, in addition to the option of online catch-up viewing.
"It's a bit of a surprise in terms of how Canadians are continuing to watch our live stream within the service," he said. However, that only underlines the need for more third party content on the relaunched CBC streaming app to engage and sustain audiences.
Other third party content providers are lining up with CBC Gem, including Telefilm Canada, from whom the streamer is to offer over 100 Canadian movies, to be viewed ad-free, on top of films from the National Film Board of Canada.
CBC Gem, as it offers content available on the CBC's linear channels, also has film and TV fare from A71 Entertainment, Elevation Pictures, eOne, levelFILM and Mongrel Media, and international produces like BBC Studios, Fremantle International, ITV Studios Global Entertainment and Sky Vision.
"We are in the midst of a renaissance of great television programming, and we want to make sure Canadians have a place in this new world of globalized television—a place that is theirs,” added Catherine Tait, CBC/Radio-Canada’s CEO – who also discussed Gem in her Cartt.ca podcast last week.
