We’ve got some bad news for Canadians who primarily watch the Super Bowl for its commercials.
Canadians will no longer be able to watch American Super Bowl commercials due to a renegotiated trade deal with the U.S. and Mexico. In Chapter 15 of the United-States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, Canada has agreed to remove a Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) policy that banned broadcasters from replacing U.S. ads with Canadian ones (also called simultaneous substitution or “simsub”).
The popular rule was placed in 2016 so Canadian viewers could enjoy the same commercials that American viewers saw during the big game. This lead to a lot of loss revenues with broadcasters.
Now that the ban has been lifted, Canadian broadcasters are once again free to replace the American commercials with their own – in turn generating more revenue for the broadcaster.
CTV (along with CTV2 and all TSN stations) will have broadcast rights to Super Bowl 53 in Canada. They will “simsub” the American broadcaster CBS and replace most, if not all, their commercials.
You should still expect Canada to get some decent commercials. We may not have a strong showing of Doritos, or GoDaddy ads, but expect to see a lot of the large Hollywood Blockbuster commercials to still air in Canada.
Canadians will be able to watch US commercials – starting at kickoff – if you subscribe to the US station broadcasting the game (CBS for Super Bowl LIII).
As always, make sure to visit us the day after the Super Bowl. We’ll have a round up of all the commercials you missed.
