CraveTV 'continues to grow' as web streaming service Shomi to shut down, Bell says

The president and CEO of Bell Canada is expressing confidence in his company's streaming video service even as a competitor in theNetflix-dominatedfield prepares to shut down.

"There's no change in the status ofCraveTV," George Cope said in an interview Tuesday with The Canadian Press.

"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."

Cope's comments came one day afterShomi, launched two years ago by Rogers (TSX:RCI.B) and Shaw (TSX:SJR.B), announced it is calling it quits at the end of November due to lower-than-hoped-for subscriber numbers.

• Web streaming service Shomi to shut down as of Nov. 30

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 (TSX:BCE) and Telus (TSE:T).

It became available to all Canadians last January.

Cope would not comment on specific subscriber numbers. Solutions Research Group, a Toronto-based consumer-research firm, estimated earlier this year that five million Canadian households about 46 per cent of all homes subscribed to Netflix.

That's roughly seven times more than Shomi and CraveTV combined, said the report, which added that CraveTV was trailing Shomi.

Cope said the demise of Shomi means CraveTV will compete "more directly" with Netflix.

• Netflix subscriber growth slows dramatically

While each service offers its own unique content, such as Netflix's highly popular "House of Cards" series, CraveTV's main selling point is its exclusive rights in Canada to older HBO shows such as "The Wire" and "The Sopranos."

"I suspect that as long as CraveTV has HBO, then they'll actually be OK," said Etan Vlessing, Canadian bureau chief for Hollywood Reporter.

Zach Fleisher, a 24-year-old Winnipegger, subscribed to both Netflix and HBO for several months. A big HBO fan, he abandoned Netflix in the summer.

"I just found that with the one service, there was enough content on there to keep myself occupied for the amount of time I spend watching TV," Fleisher said.

Others, however, don't choose only one service.

"I use Netflix, Crave and Shomi. The three combined costs way less than cable and basically gives me any show I want," said Spencer Blake of Toronto via social media.