CBC Listen
Stream Radio, Podcasts & Music
How much does CBC Listen cost?
Prices are current as of 9 Sept 2026.
CBC Listen has no in-app products on record in the United States.
10+ alternatives to CBC Listen
| CBC Listen |   TuneIn Radio: Music & Sports |   radio.net - AM FM Radio Tuner |   Stingray Music: 100s of DJs |   AccuRadio: Curated Music Radio |   Radio Paradise |   Online Radio Box: FM Stations |   KEXP |   The New ClassicalFM |   My TSO | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating / 5 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.8 | 4.2 | 4.6 | 4.2 | 4.0 | 3.0 | 3.3 |
| Reviews | 28K | 2.3M | 170K | 61K | 2.1K | 2K | 1.5K | 400 | 115 | 20 |
| Released | 2009 | 2011 | 2011 | 2011 | 2010 | 2012 | 2016 | 2009 | 2011 | 2012 |
| Monthly price | — | $9.99 | $2.99 | $3.99 | — | — | $5.99 | — | — | — |
| Annual price | — | $99.99 | $25.99 | — | — | — | $29.99 | — | — | — |
The going rate for each plan in United States, in its own currency, shaded from the cheapest price on the row to the dearest. Plans fewer than four in ten of the priced apps sell are left out.
CBC Listen reviews
4.7 out of 5, based on 28,250 reviews.
What people like
- Great for catching missed shows anytime
- Trustworthy and reliable news source
- Excellent music programming and variety
- Works well while traveling abroad
What they complain about
- Forces you to log in constantly
- Defaults to Ottawa instead of your location
- Ads interrupt the listening experience now
- App crashes or freezes often
Life Changing
Listening to CBC Music has changed my life significantly for the better. The thoughtfulness put into programming, the quality of the conversation, and the range of music. I look forward to it each day. I just wish the Morning and Drive style of program lasted longer.
Location Bug
Defaults to Ottawa. Always. Regardless of location services or sign in status. Ugh.
Steadily going downhill with every revision
- Now it doesn’t remember where I live (hint YYC is not OTT). I have to change my location manually every launch. -Similarly it doesn’t remember my login very long. I created an account so it would remember I was in YYC and it asks me to log back in every 5-8 days. - The podcast interface is broken. They remove podcasts. — For instance I was listening to Terry O’Rileys “Under the Influence” in order from the beginning. They started back around season 4 and I was somewhere in the middle of season 7 when they removed all episodes before season 10. — It doesn’t remember the episodes I’ve watched, I have to keep track manually, even after I created an account. — It doesn’t remember the podcasts I’m listening to. It tries to suggest something new every time. I have to manually search, Terry O’Riley is not surfaced to the top. — It doesn’t offer to play the next episode in the podcast, even when I’ve just finished and want to keep listening. Again, I have to search manually for the podcast. — Here’s a new one. You used to be able to pull to refresh - I’m listening to Under the Influence somewhere in the 2020s. First off, the app doesn’t drop you down to the last listened to episode, you have to manually scroll down and find it, which used to be annoying but you would just thumb pull up until you got to where you wanted to be. Some project manager decided that was too easy. Now it lists about 10 episodes then you get a “Click to show more” link. So to go back 6 seasons to the 2020s you can’t just pull down, you have to scroll down 10 episodes, find the link, click to load more, scroll down another 10, find the link, click it, scroll down and on and on 10 or 15 times. A much worse system, and new this summer. The only reason I gave it 4 stars is because I listen to the CBC every day and it actually works after you jump through the increasingly stupid hoops. But it is actively discouraging me from using it. I wish I could recommend this app, the only reason I use it is I haven’t found anything else the lets me blend live and podcast episodes. I would jump ship in a heartbeat if I did. Do better, CBC. And reassign that project manager to something outside the UX realm.
Tired
Time to replace people. The same person has been hosting weekday mornings and it’s so mediocre. The replacement while Steven was away has been a refreshing change. New life new listeners. Current it’s just a dying group dedicated to listening because you have a dinosaur hosting. Bad daily music choices. So on…
Annoying Ads
Great app, and correct me if I’m wrong, but it used to be ad-free. Now, in September 2026, we are hearing ads - and they are truly annoying.
Lack of nurses strike coverage
While I appreciate is a sensitive topic I found that even with 24 days of job action including strikes at a number of sites that CBC did not provide more coverage on the impacts to patients as compared to signalling out Health Authorities as the bad employers due to bullying of nurses to do work that they deemed was not a non nursing task. An podcast on what constitutes a profession and is it being downgraded by being defined by a series of tasks and who does what shifting from a wholistic approach to nursing and caring.
I Want to Like it
I'm trying to use more Canadian media, but I hate that there's no option to play music by artist. If there's a Canadian musician I want to listen to this app makes it way to hard to find them. I don't want to listen to a whole genre playlist, I just want to listen to what I want.
A suggestion
I believe we are indeed fortunate to have access to the CBC. Yet if I may I would like to suggest it would serve to aim a little higher. For example only, To give interview access not just to the often interesting point of view of defence lawyers in criminal cases. But also, accord interviews ——-even of fair length to practising lawyers but at the same high level —-for the prosecution. To let the public have access to a real and scrupulous appraisal of the intent of law.
Playback good, personalization bad
It would be great if the app smartly recognized where I am vs defaulting to Ottawa. It would be great if my favorited station was the default station. To get around these issues, it’s easier for me to not sign in, which then defaults to local station. Summary: Playback works as intended, but what it plays back does not.
Generally great but re-login requests annoying.
This is slowly getting better but very slowly. I do think that unnecessary requirements to re-login after system updates or anything like that are getting to be a bit much.
Essential
Listen every day. Essential for world news. Love Saturday morning programming.
Glitchy
The app routinely forces me to re-sign in, a hassle I’ve reported for years with zero resolution. Worse, the audio randomly cuts out on a regular basis. I’ve experienced these exact same issues across both iOS and Android, while other audio apps run completely fine. Needs serious bug The app routinely forces me to re-sign in, a hassle I’ve reported for years with zero resolution. Worse, the audio randomly cuts out on a regular basis. I’ve experienced these exact same issues across both iOS and Android, while other audio apps run completely fine. Needs serious bug fixes.
Works well but requires location
If you refuse to give this app access to your location data, it will count you as “international” and restrict some content. This reeks of the CRTC and their meddling, a familiar story. The live streams seem to still work, and you can select which region to listen to eg. Atlantic or Eastern. Quality seems stable and sounds very good to my ears.
Not Searchable
Heard a show on the radio you love? Try searching for it. Perhaps the software developers need to “eat their own dog food”, aka do way more usability testing.
Login isn’t persistent
I love having on demand access to CBC and I use this app **every single day** to listen to CBC radio. More specifically I use it to listen to World Report every morning, and to listen to specific segments of shows that I might have missed/want to hear again. But the reason for the lower rating is that I’m regularly frustrated by the fact that at least weekly the app logs me out and I have to sign in again. And every time I have to do that, the order of my favourites is reset. I assume this coincides with when the app is updated, but I honestly haven’t confirmed that. The point is that I don’t have this issue with other apps (they maintain my login persistently and only rarely require me to log in again) and so this app really needs to hold onto my login for more than a few days. And even then, the favourites list order should be persistent between logins. It’s a pretty basic function. I’ll be glad to change this review and increase the stars up to 5* if that is fixed.
The Best radio
Fantastic app. I have listened to my cbc radio from all over the world. It’s a friendly voice wherever I go. Up to date news, great content. Super podcasts as well. Thank you CBC.
Location needs to be enabled to stream playlists.
Why do I need to drain my battery to constantly verify I’m in Canada. Also, enough with the racialized programming, ie “The Block”.
Can’t see AirPlay devices in app
I accidentally updated the CBC app on my iPad and now I can’t figure out how to send audio to my AirPlay devices. In the old app (pre October) it was right there with the playback controls. Is it missing? Is it moved? Unhappy. Update: CBC developers responded, it’s on the bottom of the full screen player. My experience is that sometimes the full screen player doesn’t scroll in landscape orientation on iPad and you can’t see the AirPlay option, but it’s always visible in portrait mode. Glad to have this working again, if sometimes just with a workaround, happy again.
Missing CBC!
I used to listen to this app everyday. But sadly it won’t let me anymore. Can’t seem to sign in from US. I didn’t vote for the jerk in the Whitehouse and I can’t help but think that he is to blame. We’ll be apologizing for him for years to come but I really love CBC and can’t always get it over the airwaves. This app is wonderful if you can get it.
What happened to the playlogs?
When listening to an episode, the playlist is not available anymore on Afterdark, please bring back this fabulous feature!
CBC
Everywhere you are!
App has stopped working for me
Recently, when I start the app it goes to a screen asking me to allow tracking, and there’s a continue button, but when I tap the button, nothing happens. The app is completely unusable as a result.
not bad at all!
👍👍👍
Disorganized mess
I liked the older app far better ...now it’s just a disorganized mess.
Balance please
As a publicly funded entity, CBC should be required to provide well-researched, evidence-based, and balanced journalism please.
CBC 🩷
I listen to & watch CBC for an entertainment, news, insight and on and on…. Can’t recommend CBC enough….. support our Canadian broadcasting corporation….
Review
The current version completely covers the Lock Screen on iPhone when the app is open. This is unacceptable. If this is not fixed I will complain to Apple.
No way to bookmark live streams?
I listen to several different Radio 1 streams, for the local content. The new update seems to make it impossible to bookmark favorite live streams in "My Radio", making it much more difficult to quickly switch between streams. The app apparently assumes that a listener will only make one choice for Radio 1 streams, and then never change.
Can I revert to old version?
I do not live the new version at all. I live change and improved navigation in updates, but I can’t find shows nearly as easily, and what happened to My Radio? Help!
I’m not in Ottawa!
It’s been years now, please fix it. No matter how I set up the location, it always jump to Ottawa when you open the app.
🏆Glorious app❤️
Easily switch regions, music, podcasts. The app is so clean and elegant. It’s ideal, really and I use it daily
Insane update 7.6.1
Just updated, and now it doesn’t open at all unless I sign in. Every day I now must delete the app, re-download and install, and sign in or it just loads forever. Silly me for updating and trusting the system!
Love the update, but live streams still don't show which track is playing!
This is a great update that makes the app much more usable and looks a lot prettier. Also seems to be much more stable. But is there some kind of ban on pushing out the track names and artists in the live feed? I'm a Midwesterner from the U.S. who thinks CBC Radio 3 has the best shows and DJs who play the best music anywhere, but I can never re-find what I'm listening to unless I get lucky enough to hear the DJ chime in after the set! It's gotta be easy enough to show us track names and artists, no?
Cbc listen
Miss the live stream radio
Latest update not an improvement
The latest update has made reading the screen much more difficult, especially for people who’s eyesight isn’t perfect. The size of the info for the current broadcast program, at top of page, is much smaller, about one-third the size the app used to show this info. It was much easier to read before. Please make this larger, more as it used to be. I also miss the ability to swipe between News, and Music sections. Really, this latest update was making the app less user-friendly, and this needs to be fixed.
Listener
News you can trust
App freezes
If you pause a show of podcast, you have to restart the app to resume.
The sounds of Canada
This app lets me hear the sounds of Canada and I use it nearly everyday. I especially like music through the night. It would be nice if there was a playlog displayed with the stream though, because I often end up googling what the songs are after i hear them!
Radio alarm function doesn’t work
I would love if I could use this app for my clock radio, but the function doesn’t work — even if left in the forefront as required.
Allow us to change FF / REW duration
Please allow us to change FF and REW seconds. I prefer 30s for FF and 10s for REW. Apple Podcast App allows that. Please offer the same
Missing
Where is Portia! I enjoy listening to CBC radio halifax
Cant sign in
Can’t sign in and listen to shows. Please fix
Great App!
Does the trick if you want to listen to live radio or tap it to previously recorded programming. I love it!
Crashes
This used to be my favorite app. Since the most recent update it is constantly crashing. I hope this gets updated soon.
Great Content Horrible App
Love the CBC Podcasts. The app however will not play podcasts in the correct order no matter how you arrange the order, from oldest to newest or newest to oldest. I wonder if tee is a conflict with IOS?
Appreciation
I find myself using the app rather than the radio for the convenience. I find I am able to get more value for our support of CBC having access to the on demand feature, where I can access shows I have missed. Bravo to more options
Zero stars - terrible!
They wrecked something that worked just fine before. Now I can’t even listen to simple items like “World Report” in the morning. If you have not yet updated to this version - don’t! I now only listen to CBC using the older version on a different device. Leave good things alone! Or at least make them better and possible to use.
Good!
Not bad at all! In fact, i like this app!
What gives?
Why can I only listen to one version of Radio one and radio two? I also don't know how the live program relates to the online schedule.
Mostly good, but bugs persist unaddressed
Overall the design of the app is pretty good, and is relatively easy to find the shows you’re looking for. The downside though are the bugs that have persisted for years now without being addressed, despite how many times they are informed of them. The one that drives me nuts the most is how podcasts ignore the continuous playback option, so they will always play one to the next to the next forever. So if you cant reach your phone right away when the episode finishes, it will just load the next one regardless of whether you already heard it, and if like I do you tend to stop when theres a few seconds left, it will rapidly play the final seconds of dozens and dozens of episodes without stopping. Really dumb and annoying.
CBC Listen FAQ
- Is CBC Listen free?
- Yes. The app is free, in all 175 countries it sells in, and it sells nothing inside it.
- Does CBC Listen have a free trial?
- No. None of its offers (US) come with a free trial.
- What are the best alternatives to CBC Listen?
- TuneIn Radio: Music & Sports (4.7 from 2,314,374 reviews, premium from $1.99), radio.net - AM FM Radio Tuner (4.7 from 170,387 reviews, premium from $2.99) and Stingray Music: 100s of DJs (4.8 from 61,101 reviews, premium from $2.99).
CBC Listen download
Last updated 1 month ago.
CBC Listen sells in 175 countries. It was released 17 years and 1 month ago, on 13 Aug 2009. It holds a 4.7 rating from 28,250 reviews.
Supports 1 language: English.
How much does CBC Listen make?
Third-party estimates for the last 30 days, worldwide — not the store's own figures, which Apple publishes for nobody.