CBC | Canada’s First Voice-Enabled News Experience
As audience behaviour evolved, CBC saw an opportunity to reach Canadians through the emerging Amazon Echo voice platform. The broadcaster wanted to stay ahead of digital adoption, ensuring its content remained accessible and effortless to consume. To move quickly and get it right, CBC turned to TribalScale—a partner known for deep expertise in Alexa Skill development and agile delivery for enterprise media clients like the PGA Tour.
Impact Delivered
Challenge
CBC wanted to innovate beyond traditional radio and digital channels by creating a hands-free, voice-driven experience. But with Alexa still new to the Canadian market, they faced several key challenges:
Understanding how to translate audio content into conversational interaction design.
Upskilling internal teams to design, build, and iterate on a completely new voice platform.
Moving fast enough to secure a first-to-market position—without compromising quality or the trusted CBC voice.
CBC needed a partner who could transfer both technical expertise and agile process discipline, empowering its teams to deliver innovation at startup speed.
Solution
TribalScale partnered closely with CBC to deliver both education and execution.
Alexa Enablement Workshops: We hosted two half-day sessions with over 25 CBC employees—including executives, producers, developers, and UX leads—to demystify voice technology and align on opportunities.
Workshop 1: “What is the Amazon Echo?” introduced the Alexa ecosystem and guided CBC’s teams through idea generation and feature prioritization.
Workshop 2: “Enablement” focused on designing a Voice User Interface (VUI) through interactive whiteboarding, helping CBC translate news content into intuitive voice flows.
Paired Development: One CBC developer was paired with a TribalScale engineer for hands-on collaboration, accelerating delivery and knowledge transfer.
Agile Execution: Within one week, the joint team produced and tested a live, working Alexa Skill.
The result was a fully functional CBC News Alexa Skill that allowed listeners to:
Ask Alexa to play national newscasts like World Report, World at Six, World This Hour, and World This Weekend.
Hear the latest hourly flash briefings with national and international updates.
Access news seamlessly by voice across any Echo device.
The Skill launched publicly in 2017, establishing CBC as Canada’s first broadcaster with a live presence on Alexa.
Outcome
In just one week, CBC transformed from voice-curious to voice-enabled—launching a product that deepened trust with its audience while setting a precedent for digital innovation in Canadian media. The collaboration became a model for rapid learning, agile enablement, and meaningful partnership between public institutions and modern tech teams.
Why It Matters
Voice interaction represents the next evolution in how audiences consume information. By embracing Alexa early, CBC proved that even legacy broadcasters can lead at the intersection of technology and storytelling—without losing the human connection that defines their brand.