Rogers, Bell Canada Launch Dueling TV Everywhere Services
TORONTO -- Canada’s two largest pay TV providers have each introduced multi-screen “TV Everywhere” services for their broadband and video subscribers, setting up a fresh battlefront between the nation’s leading cable operator and the nation’s leading phone company. Rogers Communications and BCE, the parent company of Bell Canada, launched the dueling multi-platform services in Toronto late last year after quietly testing them on small groups of customers earlier in the fall. Both companies’ plans call for much bigger service rollouts in 2010, accompanied by extensive marketing drives.
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Like the “TV Everywhere” services now being introduced or tested by Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon and other pay TV providers in the U.S. (WID Jan 5 p1), the Rogers On Demand Online and Bell Canada TV Anywhere services are designed to be free to current video and broadband subscribers. Using a centralized broadband portal, each company’s subscribers can access TV programming from any computer in Canada with a high-speed broadband connection. Plans call for extending access to each service to smart cell phones in the near future. “It’s truly going to be ‘TV Everywhere’ in time,” said David Purdy, vice president and general manager of TV services at Rogers. Speaking at a recent cable industry forum, Purdy described Rogers’ vision as “really an extension of the existing cable model.”
Unlike their American counterparts, the Rogers and Bell Canada multi-screen services have not yet run into any organized opposition from consumer and public interest groups. In a united challenge to the legality of the Comcast, Time Warner, and other multi-screen TV initiatives in the U.S., Free Press, Media Access Project, Public Knowledge, Consumers Union, and other groups urged the U.S. Justice Department Monday to investigate whether the pay TV industry illegally colluded in developing the TV Everywhere business model.
Although Rogers was known to be working on its multi-screen service since last spring, Bell Canada only publicly disclosed its version in mid-October. Initially known as “TMN Online,” the fledgling TV Anywhere service enables Bell TV subscribers of The Movie Network (TMN) to watch network programming from any computer with high-speed access in Canada. Available through the Bell TV Online portal, the service originally granted online access to about 130 hours of video programming. Bell TV, which has about 1.9 million video subscribers, is now making other online video programming available as well, starting with Family Channel Online and Playhouse Disney Online.
Rogers, which counts about 2.3 million basic cable subscribers, then went live with a beta version of its service at the end of November. Similar to Comcast’s recently renamed Fancast Xfinity TV, Rogers On Demand Online offers more than 1,000 hours of aggregated video programming from 17 broadcast and production partners and 30 channels, including Rogers’ own Citytv and Rogers Sportsnet channels. The operator is offering access to the programming from its own Web portal, developed in conjunction with Comcast corporate cousin thePlatform. In a unique twist, Rogers is relying on its subscribers’ cable modems to authenticate them for the service.
“The customer needs are evolving, and they want a legitimate and easy way to access this content,” Purdy said, speaking at a launch party to preview the service. “Our constant message is either you embrace it and evolve with the computer, or they find illegal ways around it."
The moves by Rogers and Bell Canada come as polls show that Canadians are interested in multi-screen content but don’t necessarily want to pay extra for it. In the latest Digital Life Canada survey conducted by Solutions Research Group, only 22 percent of respondents said they would pay for TV shows online. And just 11 percent of online Canadians said they actually paid for online or mobile content over the past month.