Netflix Comes to Canada

BreakABone · 09-21-2010, 05:02 PM

For the most part, seems like it will be streaming only, but really the best part of Netflix, getting a movie once or twice a week in the mail is a bonus.

Quote:

TORONTO (Hollywood Reporter) - Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings will be in Toronto Wednesday to launch an online video subscription service that will allow Canadians to download their favorite flicks and TV shows for a monthly fee.

Entering the Canadian market is Netflix's first foreign expansion. The move has local video distribution players girding for cutthroat competition. Besides Netflix, Internet content-streaming behemoths like Apple TV and Boxee are getting set to launch north of the U.S. border, too.

Phone giant BCE Inc. 10 days ago unveiled a $3.2 billion deal to acquire top-rated national TV network CTV. Cable giant Shaw Communications has a deal in the works to purchase rival broadcaster Canwest Global Communications Corp. for $2 billion.

They along with other players like cable giants Rogers Communications and Quebecor Media have been bolstering their online video offerings in recent months and lowering the cost of their data plans. All this is in anticipation of Netflix's expansion northwards.

Netflix's Canuck offering will be only online streaming, with no physical DVD rentals planned, at least for now.

http://ca.reuters.com/article/techno...68J4MX20100920

Welcome to the modern world, Canada.

Fox 6 · 09-21-2010, 07:13 PM

Haha do Netflix is now considered to be the measuring stick of the modern world?

Typhoid · 09-21-2010, 08:11 PM

Shaw on Demand > Netflix.

Why would I need to physically rent a movie and have it mailed to me when I can just get it at the very press of a button.

You're a dying breed, Netflix. I don't need your physical copies.

Vampyr · 09-21-2010, 09:33 PM

You do know Netflix does streaming?

BreakABone · 09-21-2010, 09:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vampyr

You do know Netflix does streaming?

I hoped he was being sarcastic, since I said that pretty much Netflix in Canada will ONLY be streaming at the moment. Not the physical discs.

Typhoid · 09-22-2010, 01:55 AM

Quote:

I hoped he was being sarcastic

Indeed.

But I still do think Shaw on Demand is better, and will quickly destroy Netflix in Canada, because it is accessible with the touch of a button on everyone's standard remote [So long as they are with Shaw].

What's next - McDonald's releasing some type of 'Whopper'?