CRTC decision will force Shomi, CraveTV owners to offer programming to
all Canadians
Daniel Bader
mobilesyrup.com
March 12, 2015 1:52pm
http://mobilesyrup.com/2015/03/12/crtc-decision-to-force-shomi-cravetv-owners-to-offer-programming-to-all-canadians/
Canadians may soon be able to subscribe to on-demand services like Shomi
or CraveTV over an internet connection from any provider.
At the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV hearing today, Chairman Jean-Pierre Blais
said that the framework for online and cable/satellite video must be
changed to align more closely with the way Canadians are watching content.
In addition to encouraging content producers to create more Canadian
content, and relaxing the quotas around that content during daytime and
non-primetime television, the CRTC said it plans to prevent companies
like Bell, Rogers and Shaw from offering exclusive content through
traditional cable/satellite infrastructure if it is not made available
to all Canadians over the internet.
“The CRTC is introducing an important change to ensure Canadian
video-on-demand services can compete on an equal footing with online
video services. Canadian video-on-demand services will be able to offer
exclusive content as long as they are available to all Canadians over
the Internet. This means that Canadians would not need to have a cable
or satellite subscription in order to access these services,” the ruling
said.
For hybrid OTT (over-the-top) offerings like Shomi and CraveTV, this
ruling will gravely impact their business model, as the companies’
owners, Rogers, Shaw and Bell respectively, have argued that the
services’ low prices are directly impacted by their association with
more lucrative monthly television packages.
The ruling states that Shomi and CraveTV, among others, would be allowed
to remain cable-only as long as the content they provide in their
subscriptions is made available to competing services. This would fly in
the face of the strategies set out by the services’ parent companies,
who have invested millions of dollars in acquiring exclusives from
Amazon, HBO and Showtime.
The decision comes after a joint complaint was submitted to the CRTC by
the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and Consumers’ Association of
Canada (CAC) claiming that Shomi and CraveTV contravened Canadian
television rules by being withheld from customers that didn’t subscribe
to certain television or internet packages.
The regulatory body is calling for comments submitted about the
decision, the deadline of which is April 27th. It’s unclear whether Bell
or Rogers/Shaw will make changes to the subscription requirements before
that time, but one thing is crystal: if the changes go through, pricing
for either service will go up.
This is a breaking story and will be updated throughout the day.
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