Online CinemaNow service eyeing ‘sigificant’ amount of Cancon: Best Buy

Best Buy Co. Ltd. says it plans to offer “a significant amount of Canadian content” on its new over-the-top video service, CinemaNow. “The objective is to ensure that whatever the breakdown of Canadian versus international content is, the idea is to be competitive with Netflix and iTunes, and certainly to ensure that it offers a significant amount of Canadian content,” Christopher Bennett, Best Buy and Future Shop Canada’s director of corporate communications, said in an interview Thursday. “The choice for the consumer is our real strategy and our real focus right now.” The over-the-top video service, planned for launch in August, will offer purchase and rental options to access programming, but not subscriptions. It will feature more than 10,000 film and television series titles at its launch, the company says. The CinemaNow news comes in the midst of a CRTC consultation on the role of over-the-top services in the Canadian broadcasting system. Popular streaming service Netflix found itself defending its role within Canadian broadcasting at this week’s Banff World Media Festival in Banff, Alta. Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer, said at the festival Wednesday that despite the industry’s disquiet regarding his company’s role, Netflix is a new buyer that’s helped raise prices for content, which is benefiting producers. He said the service supports Canadian content through lucrative licensing deals and that roughly 10 per cent of Netflix’s offerings are Canadian. Sarandos added that the so-called trend of cord cutting, or satellite and cable TV cancellations, hasn’t happened, and that Netflix is complementary to traditional broadcasting platforms. Steve Swasey, a spokesman for Netflix, said in an interview Thursday that the company is a “wonderful” platform for independent filmmakers and studios. “It’s a new buyer of content in the ecosystem. It’s new money, so obviously people want to sell their content. They can license it to Netflix and that’s a new channel that hasn’t been there in the past, just like it’s new for consumers, and consumers are loving it,” he said. Swasey wouldn’t say whether any Canadian companies are reluctant to license their content to Netflix. CBC reached a licensing deal with Netflix in December to offer a number of its programs on the over-the-top service. CBC shows Heartland, InSecurity, Republic of Doyle, Being Erica, The Tudors and some episodes of The Nature of Things are available for streaming, but hit Canadian shows from other networks such as Rookie Blue, Flashpoint, The Listener, The Borgias and Degrassi are not offered. CBC spokesman Jeff Keay said the broadcaster is happy to make use of another platform. “It’s another means of getting our programming to a broader audience. It’s all good from our point of view. We don’t really have any comments on the regulatory side of it,” he said in an interview. When asked whether Netflix was more of a problem or an opportunity, he said: “To the extent that it can put our programming in front of more eyeballs, I think it makes a contribution." At the Banff festival Monday, CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein said that he didn’t know whether over-the-top services should be dealt with using legislation, but that the commission's consultation is intended to find out “what the hell is going on here.” “It’s something that’s moving very fast and I don’t want to deal with it when it’s too late,” von Finckenstein said. Swasey said Netflix hasn’t encountered any regulatory hurdles it didn’t expect. “A week after we announced in July, one of the cable companies lowered its caps. So we knew that there was going to be some dialogue going around a new service centre in the country. We expect when there’s change some people react differently, but we continue to focus on the consumer experience,” he said. Bennett did not reveal CinemaNow’s pricing, but said it will be competitive with iTunes and Netflix’s Canadian services. The U.S. Version of CinemaNow, which has been available since 2009, offers movie purchases for $10 to $15 and rentals, or streaming, for $2 to $4 per title. When asked about efforts to acquire rights to Canadian content, Bennett said: “Right now, we're in talks with all the major studios and we expect at launch to have agreements with all of them.” Bennett added that the regulatory debate in Canada has not affected CinemaNow’s launch and that he is not very familiar with the CRTC consultation. “We’re not a model like Netflix,” he said. “Our model is more identifiable with iTunes.” Bennett said DVD sales continue to be strong but that online viewing “is where the momentum is going.” “I don’t think it’s necessarily an industry in decline but it’s an industry that’s evolving. You’ve got to meet that new consumer that’s now migrating to creating more home ecosystems with smart TVs and WiFi-connected systems to allow for digital content,” he said. “It’s just making sure that that consumer is able to get the content they want, when they want as well.” mburgess@thewirereport.ca

Online CinemaNow service eyeing ‘sigificant’ amount of Cancon: Best Buy

Broadcast | June 16, 2011

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