Shomi not meant to ‘kill Netflix’: Rogers CEO

Rogers Communications Inc. CEO Guy Laurence told a CIBC investor conference in Montreal on Wednesday that his company's upcoming over-the-top (OTT) programming service, Shomi, isn't meant to be the ultimate solution for streaming users. "We're not trying to kill Netflix here," he said. "This is a complementary play, rather than an either/or play." Laurence said his goal is to differentiate Shomi — for which Rogers has partnered with Shaw Communications Inc. — from Netflix Inc.'s product and other OTT services by concentrating on quality and, specifically, television content. "There's some misunderstandings about the value proposition because people tend to focus on the volume of titles," he said. "And it's really not about that. It's not about the volume of titles or films, it's about the quality of your TV series you've got." Television series, which lend themselves to binge watching, will be key to the success of Shomi, Laurence said. "We've gone after quality of TV and the right amount of films," he said. "It's not just having the last season, it's having the last five seasons and being able to access them easily." Laurence added that the two companies behind Shomi are working hard on its recommendation engine. Laurence said that, unlike Netflix or other OTT service providers such as Amazon.com Inc., Shomi will use an editorial board to rate and recommend movies and television shows. "If your 10-year-old kid watches Kindergarten Cop and then wants to watch the next film, the way an algorithm looks at it is that the first film had Arnold Schwarzenegger in it so I will now offer them Terminator 3," he said. "What we've decided to do is this very revolutionary thing for our recommendation engine: we're going to use human beings." Laurence said the company is in "active discussions" to bring Shomi to other TV service providers. "This is not supposed to be a closed play," he said. "I'd like all the BDUs to take it over time." Cogeco Cable Inc. CEO Louis Audet said at the same conference Wednesday that his company is “very interested” in carrying Shomi. “They were in to see us. We’ve told them what we were doing with Netflix in the United States,” Audet said. “We’ve said, 'Look guys, if we can negotiate something that’s acceptable to both parties, we’d be delighted to carry your service.' Our job is to have as much fascinating content on that TiVo box as we can.” Cogeco announced in July that it would launch a Canadian service in partnership with TiVo Inc. that will be similar to the arrangement Cogeco’s U.S. subsidiary Atlantic Broadband has had in place since last year. The TiVo service will allow users to watch live, recorded, on-demand and OTT content on a variety of devices, including televisions, tablets and smartphones, and will include a search engine to help viewers find content. Netflix is available through Cogeco set-top boxes in the U.S., Audet noted. “Having studied the behaviour of our customers, we have concluded that Netflix is not a foe, but it’s a friend, and it’s a complement,” Audet said, adding the company decided to integrate Netflix with its TiVo platform in order to provide the customer with a “full experience.” “The position we’re taking is that if there’s going to be change, you might as well embrace it and turn it around to your advantage,” he said. While the company hasn’t divulged the results of its U.S. rollout of the TiVo service, Audet said they were “satisfied this is bringing us new customers, that it’s bringing us higher ARPU , that it’s helping us retain customers, so we’re quite pleased with the outcome.” — With reporting by Peter Henderson at phenderson@thewirereport.ca and Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca

Shomi not meant to ‘kill Netflix’: Rogers CEO

Broadcast | September 17, 2014

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