Bell launching CraveTV as Canadian streaming wars heat up

[OTAWatcher]

Well that didn't take long...   With Rogers and Shaw launching Shomi back in November, Bell and Telus launches CraveTV in December at half the monthly cost of Shomi, $4 per month!


Bell gave the public a look at its upcoming CraveTV on Wednesday, a launch previewing the company's $4 a month streaming service that will be available for TV subscribers starting December 11.

The new offering places Bell back in the game, on the wing of its competitors Shaw and Rogers, which have already launched a similar streaming service – Shomi – to compete with Netflix and other online purchasing and streaming offerings like Apple's iTunes, Amazon, and Google's Play.
(Shomi costs $7.99 a month, currently available for only Rogers and Shaw subscribers. Netflix costs $8.99 a month in Canada.)

"We wanted our pricing to be differentiated and our distribution to be differentiated, so we didn't set out to be in any comparison to the others that are out there," said Bell president Kevin Crull in the video above, a quote perhaps meant to distance Crave's launch from Shomi or Netflix.

"$4 is the right price point for this content. It's the right price point for our distribution partners, to make sure that they can make it widely available."
(It should be noted, in the CTV-Bell news story linked above, Shomi or Netflix were not directly mentioned.)

But CraveTV does have one notable slice of content in its catalogue – it will be the exclusive Canada streaming rights holder of HBO and its wildly popular series, like The Sopranos and Sex and the City, and the rest.

Of course, HBO also plans to roll out its own GO streaming service in January in the United States. That $15 a month package won't be available in Canada, however. (GO has existed for some time already, but has historically only been available to Americans who already subscribe to HBO's TV content.)

"I'm addicted to these things, just like I'm addicted to fantastic television," said Bell's president Kevin Crull yesterday, holding a latte in his hand while he delivered the quote (link above).
Crull said Crave will be "less than the price of your daily latte, but more addictive."

[joshua minaya]

It is good to see some competition out there i really hope it would lead to better services from these companies.

[westmixxin]

 well they can have the wars long as they want to but at the end the day I'm pretty sure companies like Netflix are going to take over everything simply because they have more access to material and I believe that the movie companies and TV networks have more faith and Netflix ability to get their material seen than they do in any other company. Hulu is a close competitor but not really that close.

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