Review Insights · Google Play
CBC Gem: Movies, TV & Live
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation · 20,475 ratings · ★ 4.1
4.1
★★★★★
20,475 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 58 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"watch"
17 negative reviews mention this · 29% of all complaints
★★★★★ "now you won't be able to watch nhl hockey on cbc gem or cbc anymore starting next season, i only used cbc gem to watch hockey, i used to use it every saturday until i subscribed to Sportsnet Plus in 2024, now i can't use it to watch any hoc…" - Jared Van de Ligt
2
"show"
12 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "start a show and get 4 commercials before it begins once the commercials are done the system crashes and you're back to the menu, rinse and repeat, clear cache, reboot and still stuck repeating the 4 commercials...so if you're into commerci…" - Erin O'Meara
3
"stuck"
11 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "start a show and get 4 commercials before it begins once the commercials are done the system crashes and you're back to the menu, rinse and repeat, clear cache, reboot and still stuck repeating the 4 commercials...so if you're into commerci…" - Erin O'Meara
4
"every"
9 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "now you won't be able to watch nhl hockey on cbc gem or cbc anymore starting next season, i only used cbc gem to watch hockey, i used to use it every saturday until i subscribed to Sportsnet Plus in 2024, now i can't use it to watch any hoc…" - Jared Van de Ligt
5
"watching"
7 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "now you won't be able to watch nhl hockey on cbc gem or cbc anymore starting next season, i only used cbc gem to watch hockey, i used to use it every saturday until i subscribed to Sportsnet Plus in 2024, now i can't use it to watch any hoc…" - Jared Van de Ligt
6
"times"
7 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "There are so many ads, they often glitch and repeat sometimes I have to shut it off because it loops through the same ad over and over. I get that is a free app, but there should be a reasonable limit. ads will have the opposite effect if t…" - Catherine B
7
"minutes"
7 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "When it works properly, it's tolerable. Ads are a problem, app should be programmed to show xx minutes of ads per xx minutes of viewing time, but instead often forces you to watch a series of ads (4-6 of them) just to start an episode, then…" - Travis Nielsen
8
"garbage"
7 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "garbage. 2.1 billion taxpayer dollars and can't steam an NHL game when you have a subscription." - Leah
9
"commercials"
6 negative reviews mention this · 10% of all complaints
★★★★★ "start a show and get 4 commercials before it begins once the commercials are done the system crashes and you're back to the menu, rinse and repeat, clear cache, reboot and still stuck repeating the 4 commercials...so if you're into commerci…" - Erin O'Meara
10
"free"
6 negative reviews mention this · 10% of all complaints
★★★★★ "There are so many ads, they often glitch and repeat sometimes I have to shut it off because it loops through the same ad over and over. I get that is a free app, but there should be a reasonable limit. ads will have the opposite effect if t…" - Catherine B
11
"trying"
6 negative reviews mention this · 10% of all complaints
★★★★★ "terrible. an insult to Canadian quality. its free so ya commercials but its excessive. plays the same commecial over and over . it gets stuck on the commercials. says 1 to 6 at top but then will keep replaying the last 2 repeatedly. Have to…" - Karen Chomin
12
"streaming"
6 negative reviews mention this · 10% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Awful. Everything about this app is bad. I figured after a couple years I'd try it again to watch a hockey game on a Saturday night. The game was selectable but then says it's not available for streaming. Absolute trash. Sailing the high se…" - Scott Buchanan
📋 All 58 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
start a show and get 4 commercials before it begins once the commercials are done the system crashes and you're back to the menu, rinse and repeat, clear cache, reboot and still stuck repeating the 4 commercials...so if you're into commercials and no actual television... it's great
Whats the point of this without Saturday night hockey
There are so many ads, they often glitch and repeat sometimes I have to shut it off because it loops through the same ad over and over. I get that is a free app, but there should be a reasonable limit. ads will have the opposite effect if they are overdone like this.
no Hockey Night in Canada then there's no point in having this app. You really screwed up this time.
now you won't be able to watch nhl hockey on cbc gem or cbc anymore starting next season, i only used cbc gem to watch hockey, i used to use it every saturday until i subscribed to Sportsnet Plus in 2024, now i can't use it to watch any hockey on saturday, it was handy if sportsnet was down on a saturday, like on nov 1, 2025, i used cbc gem to finish watching oilers when sportsnet plus went down, r.i.p nhl hockey on cbc and cbc gem
extremely buggy on Google TV
this is crazy that one cannot watch the Stanley Cup final on CBC
stuck at splash screen
terrible. an insult to Canadian quality. its free so ya commercials but its excessive. plays the same commecial over and over . it gets stuck on the commercials. says 1 to 6 at top but then will keep replaying the last 2 repeatedly. Have to shut the TV off to stop. then trying to get back to the show I have to select play 8 times before it actually plays but have to watch 6 more commercials agian. can' rewind anything as this triggers another 6 commercials. Give an payed option maybe add free.
Awful. Everything about this app is bad. I figured after a couple years I'd try it again to watch a hockey game on a Saturday night. The game was selectable but then says it's not available for streaming. Absolute trash. Sailing the high seas will always be the way, apparently.
one star because it's not possible to give zero.
takes7 minutes to open, or doesn't open
garbage. 2.1 billion taxpayer dollars and can't steam an NHL game when you have a subscription.
The app is so glitchy its unusable at times. It forgets where I left off in a show. I will make me watch ads then kick me out of my show and make me go through all the ads again. I find the show I want on a different platform and watch it there instead.
1 minute of ads. Then 2:30?!? You're insane. There's like 9 adbreaks in this documentary. You ACTUALLY Deserve less than 1 star. Beyond lucky that 1 star is a minimum rating. Do Not Install, Do Not Subscribe, Don't Make an Account. This app is just another infomarketer trying to sell your soul.
this app SUCKS just like the network. not user friendly at all. nearly impossible to navigate!
CBC Gem constantly throws 3-1-1-1 errors and logs out my whole family multiple times a day, sometimes twice an hour or more. This has been happening for over a year across Android phones, four smart TVs, Wi-Fi, mobile data, and different locations. My wife stopped using it entirely because she got tired of having to ask me to log her back in. Every other streaming app works fine. The issue is clearly with CBC Gem’s app, and it needs to be fixed. Zero stars.
how come your not showing the hockey Games like it says I'm so disappointed
This app is horrible. it skips and freezes. Ads get stuck in a loop, and ads! so many ads!!! Find another way to watch, gem stinks!
1.6 billion dollars and can't even watch a canadien team playoff game
This might be the worst streaming app I've ever used. Trying to watch the news is nearly impossible. Ads start midway through a sentence the news anchor is saying. Jumps from one story to the next without finishing the current story. Ads actually interrupt Ads! Very frustrating to use. Complete garbage.
I have this installed on my firetv and it's a steaming pile of hot garbage. The ad breaks are massive and quite often it gets stuck in an ad loop where the same add plays 16 in a row times, no joke, it shows you the ad number at the bottom. Whoever designed the functionality of this needs to go back to the drawing board. For a publicly funded application where my tax dollars went to this, I shouldn't be subject to this level of idiocy. Don't rewind, it forces you to watch all the ads again!
Of all the network apps I can add to my ROKU, CBC Gem is the WORST! While Gem gives me SIX ads at a time, others give me only one or two, then get right back to the program. Not only that, CBC Gem is the ONLY app that gets STUCK in the middle of an ad and keeps replaying again and again till I go to ROKU Home, and RESTART the CBC Gem app. 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️ I find this app so frustrating!
Total garbage. Don't waste time even trying it.
What a frightful, appalling load of utter nonsense, garbage and lies!
10 ads for 4 minutes of streaming is absolutely ridiculous!! If I could, I'd give it 0 stars
Has pre-roll ads.
If you can watch your show anywhere else, save yourself; do that, ridiculously bombarded with severe ads back to back, and the episodes are cut off before they're finished; then you end up watching 30 ads trying to troubleshoot it!! There are plenty of free platforms that don't confine you to watch 6 ads every 5 minutes!!
I wanted to watch a movie, but they are showing me ads.
Video is locked to portrait mode with no way to switch to landscape. And, no, I'm not turning autorotate on at the device level. It's off for a reason. Every other streaming app I have goes to landscape when playing videos. Why not this one? Edit to add: sigining up for a Gem account illegally subscribed me to marketing garbage too.
horrible UI experience. ads will get stuck on a loop and unless you close and restart the app, you'll be watching ads indefinitely. happens 1 to 2 times per episode you're trying to watch, beyond frustrating
In a word. Disappointing. If the ads or the show glitch you have to watch all the ads all over again. Sometimes it get stuck on a loop of the same ad, it it has happened on different devices as well. All that plus the affiliation with a well known anti LGBTQ+ company, Chick Fillet, I just had to delete it.
nothing on_it
it's crsp!! too difficult go get it
this is app is absolute dog $#!+, constant buffering and add issues. After watching one or two episodes I have to uninstall and reinstall the app to watch again otherwise the adds just play repeatedly and glitch part way through then switch to one of the 4 same ads that play every ad break
I fell asleep while watching a program so I decided to rewatch it the next day. This was my first mistake. I reselected the episode and immediately had to watch 6 ads. Then I tried skipping ahead to figure out where I had dozed off. Bam! Forced to watch another 6 ads! Sadly I hadn't found the right spot in the show so I skipped ahead again. And guess what? Yup, another 6 ads. I was so annoyed I turned off the TV. I wish I could give this zero stars.
absolutely the worst streaming app in existence. On Android (smart TV, Google streamer, or phone, it's not a user issue, it's the app), it crashes several times per hour, error messages, kicks back to the menu, logs out randomly, freezes. On Windows PC browser, it doesn't crash as much but the picture and audio is NEVER synchronized which makes it essentially non-functional. I know CBC has budget issues but a streaming app is the very foundation of reaching the public. Invest where it matters!
you would think that with a budget of 1.4 billion a year they could do better with the !#@& adds such a joke of an app
If you enjoy endless Trivago and Government of Canada ads, extreme left leaning promo's for their news service then this is the app for you. Extremely buggy on Roku.
terrible app. used for years now with many issues but it worked. it's now an insult to my intelligence. tech incompetance ! there's no help and they don't care! sad cbc radio listener!
Not worth my tax dollars
went to use the app. 4 commercials, scrolled to the part of the show I was at 5 commercials. deleted and marked as junk.
still unwatchable. all actions lead to adds. Rewind for something you missed? Before you can locate the spot you want to restart at you must endure 6 ads. Not quite where you want start? Try to adjust?6 more ads before you can even tell where you've landed.More ads than any other app, is very glitchy it gets stuck in an ad cycle where the same ad repeats over and over again endlessly. But you already know this, The problems persist and nothing has been done in spite of so many peoples complaint
The live video, which no other network seemed to have an issue with was patchy and frozen. the audio seemed muffled. This was not a one off, this was about 50% of the broadcast. If this is the future of CBC, particularly after the loss of HNIC, well then the writing is on the wall for this organization
when it works, it's ok, but it will randomly sign you out, the sign in page won't load most of the time, and the UI on the TV app doesn't work for 720p
don't like the commercials- way too many
Watched one episode of a show, interrupted five times with 3 minute ads. No other free screaming service spends so much time on ads. Typical CBC! For $10 or $12 a month I can watch the same thing ads free.
When it works properly, it's tolerable. Ads are a problem, app should be programmed to show xx minutes of ads per xx minutes of viewing time, but instead often forces you to watch a series of ads (4-6 of them) just to start an episode, then if you need to skip ahead, you're forced to watch more ads. Also, the ads often glitch and get stuck in a loop. You end up watching the same ad over and over but never get to see the show you wanted. Sure, it's free, but it's not good.
way to many ads, I opened a show and watched 4 ads, then watched not even a second of the show then there's 6 more ads
this app is fine but with a few features good be great. it is a constant annoyance that I cant use pip and content navigation is horrendous with unintuitive categories. I expect more gor my money!
+ 8 more in the clipboard copy
Sentiment summary
79%
Positive (4-5★)
0%
Neutral (3★)
21%
Negative (1-2★)