There’s a new player on the digital entertainment service scene in Canada. The CinemaNow platform, which is being marketed across the country by Best Buy Canada, offers Canadians new-release movies and TV shows for rent or purchase.
Competing for the same market as Netflix and iTunes (although the former’s stock is facing serious challenges), CinemaNow offers consumers access to new release movies to rent or download on the same day they hit retail stores. They can also download TV shows the day after they’ve aired.
That’s one of several differentiators the service offers, said Christopher Bennett, director of corporate communications at Best Buy Canada. He also pointed to the size of CinemaNow’s library, which contains 10,000 TV and movie titles (both new and catalogue) through the RoxioNow technology platform.
Consumers can register for the service online at CinemaNow.com, and its content is also available through internet-connected consumer electronics, including PC and Mac computers, TVs and some Blu-ray players.
There’s no subscription required for CinemaNow, which has a pay-as-you-watch model. Pricing varies from $2.49 for a TV show purchase to $19.99 for a new release movie purchase. Once purchased, shows and movies can be downloaded, loaded onto a Blu-ray player or stored in the cloud.
“CinemaNow has signed on five major studios: Warner Brothers, Paramount, Fox, Sony and Universal,” Bennett said.
Best Buy Canada is marketing the service to consumers through several channels in retail stores – Best Buy and its corporate sibling Future Shop – and through paid search, flyers, e-newsletters, social media and PR. Best Buy Canada’s teams are handling all of the marketing and PR outreach in-house.
“It’s important we allow customers to try the service and see how easy CinemaNow is… Both Best Buy and Future Shop are bundling the service with home theatre products and through their services teams, Geeksquad and ConnectPro respectively,” said Bennett.
