Rogers, Shaw Shomi streaming service to rival Netflix

[Lazybones]

http://business.financialpost.com/2014/08/26/shomi-rogers-shaw-netflix/?__lsa=05f3-beca

They better have some damn amazing content deals.

[Tom]

They appear to be going for some exclusive deals for TV content, but shaw seems to always have had a hard time getting anything resembling a decent deal with the movie studios. its previous attempt at an on demand service lead to a few hundred to a couple thousand movies at max, that maybe stayed around for a few months before being rotated off at intervals...

[Mr. Analog]

I don't think they'll take a bite out of Netflix any time soon, it will really depend on the quality of titles they can get, whether or not subscribers can use their services on other providers and/or whether or not they throttle content

[Tom]

It wouldn't actually be competitive if it was only available with a cable subscription. But yeah its success depends on its content and rules... I don't have super high hopes. But I might try it out.

[Darren Dirt]

When I read about it my gut instinct was basically like Telus has the "on demand" for the last 2 or 3 episodes of a hundred different TV shows, this will allow you to get dozens or hundreds of eps for your favorite timesink. Once you are a particular cable subscriber, of course (my impression is that is a requirement ON TOP OF the monthly fee).

[Tom]

If this service is actually supposed to be a netflix competitor, and it seems like they want it to be, none of those restrictions can be in place. And I heard tell that they have some exclusives for entire shows, which will be available to stream all at once like on netflix.

Shaw's existing on demand service is something else. its like Telus's sorta. But it never gained much traction due to it SUCKING BALLS. My hope is that they somehow realized that they need more content, and since the media owners wouldn't give them access under tearms  they were comfortable with, they teamed up with rogers to get better content deals. Also it'd help stem the flow of cord cutters. They'd be able to pull those people back into "the fold" as it were. If they can't sell em cable subscriptions, sell em a streaming plan instead. Either way its money in shaw's/rogers's pockets. (which is something they should have realized a long time ago)

[Lazybones]

Rogers on demand has also been around for a while without going anywhere...

[Lazybones]

Its online... Looks netflix like, TV shows have HALF the seasons or are a season behind current much like netflix.

Different mix of movies, but it looks a bit on the light side and in beta.

the number of clients at the moment is POOR, the iOS client is iPAD only for some reason.

The differentiating feature appears to be themed collections... but their selection is fairly small so that doesn't help much.

Well its beta... I will have to be sure to kill it off before it starts charging money.

The only TV based device it supports is the Xbox 360 so I might try spinning it up there...

[Thorin]

Shomi is shutting down November 30th of this year.  So it lasted about two and a quarter years?

[Mr. Analog]

I think the key to success for video streaming services is just quantity, you have to have a great library to succeed. Netflix started as THE KING of this (though not so much in Canada) however I heard a story that they are considering going 50% original content... which basically turns Netflix into yet another cable channel.

I think if streaming as a business model wants to succeed they need to go to a licensing model for shows and then let services compete with each other, not for content but the delivery and management of said content. If big content producers decide to wall of their content to their own streaming services they risk getting destroyed by "one stop shop" pirate streaming hosts that host reams of content (which is already a big thing for live TV)

[Lazybones]

I wonder how long Bells CraveTV will last.

One area that Netflix still appears to be king is clients. They are on basically everything that can stream already.

[Tom]

Shomi is shutting down November 30th of this year.  So it lasted about two and a quarter years?

I was wondering how long it'd last.

I think the key to success for video streaming services is just quantity, you have to have a great library to succeed. Netflix started as THE KING of this (though not so much in Canada) however I heard a story that they are considering going 50% original content... which basically turns Netflix into yet another cable channel.

I wonder if they'll still keep a large library or not. I think its fine if 50% is original so long as they have that large library of other content. If they don't its not all that useful to a lot of their current customers.

[Mr. Analog]

I doubt very highly that they would actually attempt this. Their originals are good but there's no way they could produce enough content to hit 50% given their current library size. Likely the library would shrink

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