For the past few years, Canadians have been able to enjoy the same Super Bowl commercials that the Americans see. That all changes for the 2020 Super Bowl.
Due to a renegotiated trade deal with the U.S. and Mexico, Canadians will no longer be able to watch American Super Bowl commercials. 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 (such as CTV and TSN) 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 can once again replace American Super Bowl ads with their own – in turn generating more revenue for the broadcaster.
CTV (along with CTV2 and all TSN stations) will have Canadian broadcast rights for this years Super Bowl. They will “simsub” the American broadcaster 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.
Super Bowl LIV will air on Sunday, February 2, 2020. J-Lo fans don’t fear, we will still get the half time show in Canada!
So where can I see the American Super Bowl Commercials? 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.
