AP: How foreign online streaming will upset Bell and Rogers apple carts

With last week’s announcement from both HBO and CBS that they are going to offer their content online for a monthly subscription, the Television and cable industry are about to change in the U.S. And, according to this report, Canada will not be far behind.

HBO is Coming

HBO is Coming

(From the AP) Canadians who want to view specialty channels and watch their favourite shows must go through their cable providers, like Bell and Rogers.

But some industry experts say that may change. They suggest that Canadians will inevitably have access to American content streamed online when online streaming becomes the norm and more and more people abandon their cable providers.

It’s already happening south of the border. Last week, HBO announced that it will allow Americans to stream its programming online next year without having to subscribe to the cable channel.

While HBO won’t be streaming its service into Canada, at least not yet, the experts say the pressure from the public and from some content providers to allow more streamed foreign content is bound to grow. And that could mean that Bell and Rogers may eventually be relegated to essentially providing the “pipe” —  or the actual cables, connecting to households that facilitate internet or wireless service.

“[Rogers] controls the pipe as does Bell. They will come to the realization, that’s their model, forget about content, and all this other nonsense, they don’t really have anything of propriety there to offer,” said Fred Lazar, an economics professor at York University’s Schulich School of Business. “Focus on the pipe, control that, and essentially increase the rates charged there as people start migrating.”

Companies like Netflix, which provide quick online streaming access to films and TV shows and cater to binge viewers, have roared to success, putting the future of cable in jeopardy. (Paul Sakuma/Associated Press)

“What [Bell and Rogers are] going to do is try and slow the migration as much as possible and try and better position themselves through different types of pricing to take advantage of the inevitable migration [from cable to online],” he said.

In a sense, cable companies were the Netflix of their time, Lazar said, mostly providing cable subscribers programming (much of it American) that had been created by others, while also supplying a healthy dose of Canadian content.

But then the internet came along, providing a more direct distribution forum for content that allowed customers to pick and choose what they wished to view. Companies like Netflix, which provided quick online streaming access to films and TV shows and catered to binge viewers, roared to success, putting the future of cable in jeopardy.

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