Days after Rogers decided to shutter its Shomi streaming TV service in November, the company is offering at least some subscribers half a year of rival Netflix’s offering.
MobileSyrup, a publication which covers consumer technology in Canada, reproduced an image of what it said was an email to customers from Melani Griffith, Rogers senior vice-president of content, making the offer to subscribers of Rogers Ignite program.
Aaron Lazarus, senior director of public affairs at Rogers, confirmed the details to Marketing.
“We are getting in touch with all eligible contract customers who subscribe to Shomi and are offering six months of Netflix on us as well as other premium content experiences in 2017 for the duration of their contract,” he said.
It is unclear whether Shaw, which co-owned Shomi with Rogers, would be making similar offers.
The offer of free Netflix for six months could resonate well with Shomi subscribers. According to Solutions Research Group, a Toronto-based consumer-research firm, five million Canadian households, or about 46% of all homes, subscribe to Netflix.
The demise of Shomi has already drawn comments from competitors such as Bell Canada, whose CEO George Cope told the Canadian Press “there’s no change in the status of CraveTV,” its own streaming offering. “It’s meeting our expectations, continues to grow and Canadians continue to subscribe to that service, so we’re going to keep competing in that marketplace.”
Both Shomi and CraveTV have had to play catch-up with Netflix, which launched in Canada in 2010 and had the benefit of an established name in the United States. CraveTV came onstream in 2014 and was originally available only to subscribers of cable services such as Bell and Telus. It became available to all Canadians last January.
-with files from The Canadian Press
