Review Insights · Google Play
CBC Gem: Movies, TV & Live
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation · 20,309 ratings · ★ 4.1
4.1
★★★★★
20,309 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 59 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"
19 negative reviews mention this · 32% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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!" - I G
2
"stuck"
9 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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!" - I G
3
"every"
9 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Always lagging for shows, no lagging on the 5 ads every 7 minutes!" - Tanya Girard
4
"watching"
9 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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 a…" - Mz Kate
5
"garbage"
8 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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 ac…" - Mike Poley
6
"minutes"
8 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Always lagging for shows, no lagging on the 5 ads every 7 minutes!" - Tanya Girard
7
"show"
7 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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.…" - Jordan R
8
"olympics"
7 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "was only here for the Olympics but there were so many adds!" - Justine
9
"loop"
6 negative reviews mention this · 10% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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!" - I G
10
"streaming"
6 negative reviews mention this · 10% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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 ac…" - Mike Poley
11
"trying"
6 negative reviews mention this · 10% of all complaints
★★★★★ "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 ac…" - Mike Poley
12
"better"
6 negative reviews mention this · 10% of all complaints
★★★★★ "can cbc not generate a better app.? the paid version has to many adds and really glitchy. ever time you go on the live cbc new feed it spins out , you then got hit back button and then it works. I started using another free news app , works…" - Philip Varley
📋 All 59 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").
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 amount of ads on this app are ABSURD. Expect to watch 6 - 12 ads for every 2 - 5 minutes of actual content.
was only here for the Olympics but there were so many adds!
Brutal amount of adds. You are punished with adds for using the app.
ads during the opening and closing ceremony very disrespectful
it tries to get me to sign in even though i want to create a account
I love watching the same 4 advets in EVERY SINGLE AD BREAK!! and in the closing ceremony. didn't want to watch the historic medal ceremony at all thanks to instacart canada. . #Instacart
Olympic coverage single handedly converted me to the "Defund the CBC" side. Cut off huge chunks of the ceremonies and games for back-to-back cutaway AND in-video ads, which might have been annoying but forgivable if you did it when OTHER COUNTRIES were the ones on screen, but you did it with OUR athletes!
constant ads during the shows your watching, and it gets stuck in a advertisement loop. embarrassing to watch the Olympics on this app. government funded trash
My one TV doesn't offer it as an app, I have to cast from my phone and it's very inconvenient. My other TV has it as an app but it's incredibly buggy. I have to hit play 20+ to play something and the ads just sometimes get stuck on ad 3/6 and endlessly loop until I exit and hit play another twenty times.
Awful- too many ads and the chromecast option doesn't work, just spins trying to load. And the app blocks out the screen if you try to cast your entire screen instead on the home app. Garbage.
it is not starting at all :(
Terrible app, doesn't allow split screen. Instantly deleted.
trying to watch the gold medal game and the Chromecast keeps cutting out and disconnecting. annoying. do better.
garbage, ads looped, no content
So so so bad! I paused the Gold medal curling game to parent for 20 minutes and when I came back it wouldn't let me continue and brought me to the end of game spoiler! Screw this! If thats how you treat viewers you lost me for good.
could not open properly to watch during Olympics. only 1 event could open.
I don't usually review apps but this is a terrible app and surely made by sub par developers but as expected from a Canada and I'm Canadian. Logs you out randomly, streaming freezes during ad breaks and frequently crashes. Do better CBC
Its not worth one star and certainly isn't worth paying for unless you like to pay to watch ads. The worst app ever.
CBC Sports is where the Olympics should be. Most frustrating experience ever; I can't even see the medal count. CBC, do better! I understand you want people to use this app for movies and streaming, but pushing people to use it was a bad choice.
constant latency issues. confusing to find what you want to watch. Continuously crashes.
Using on Google Pixel and it won't play.
It's the most infuriating thing.. watching the olympics stopping and starting and ultimately ending up more than 3 minutes behind the people next to me who are on the same network but using TSN. So much for supporting Canadian..
worst app I click to watch live hockey and miss 3/4 of the game because of other events broadcasting is dogwater do not recommend cbc in in the future
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!
can cbc not generate a better app.? the paid version has to many adds and really glitchy. ever time you go on the live cbc new feed it spins out , you then got hit back button and then it works. I started using another free news app , works much better
+ 9 more in the clipboard copy
Sentiment summary
79%
Positive (4-5★)
0%
Neutral (3★)
21%
Negative (1-2★)