CALGARY – Shaw Communications’ new movie service Shaw Movie Club is off to a rather controversial start.
Last Thursday, while promoting the launch of the service, president Peter Bissonnette said that using it to view movies either “on your (set top) box or on-line, this will not have any impact on your capacity or usage”. That prompted a heated response from consumer advocacy organization OpenMedia.ca, critical of Shaw’s plan to count the likes of Netflix against users’ bit caps, but exempt their own. It called Movie Club “a blatant attempt to gain an unfair advantage over on-line services like Netflix, as well as against Shaw’s smaller competitors in the Internet service market.”
“It’s unfair for Shaw to restrict access to competing services by making them more expensive to use than Shaw’s own services”, said executive director Steve Anderson, in a statement on Friday. “It clearly demonstrates that Internet metering isn’t about paying for use; it’s about prioritizing Big Telecom’s services in order to hogtie the competition and assert dominance in multiple markets.”
The group also urged consumers to complain to Shaw and the CRTC in order “to counter this move”.
Shaw was quick to clarify Bissonnette’s statement. A posting on Facebook later that day explained that the service is designed to be watched on TV, though some titles may also be streamed to a PC and watched on-line. However, the post continues, “this WILL contribute to your Internet data”.
In an effort seemingly designed to beat Netflix at its own game, Movie Club offers customers unlimited access to hundreds of “newer” movie titles for $12 per month. Customers can order the HD versions for an extra $5 per month, starting later this summer. Unlike the company’s video-on-demand offering, which operates on a per movie basis, Movie Club offers unlimited viewing of its library of 248 titles. The content will turn over every month, and unlike Netflix, will not include any TV series.
Bissonnette told Cartt.ca that the idea for the service came from Shaw’s consultations with customers.
“It’s just one more innovative way of attracting customers to our service and one more product to help differentiate ourselves from our competitors”, he said during an interview. “Our customers have to have a reason why they’re Shaw customers. And we’ve given them a reason, both from our new Internet pricing and the elimination of any substantive (bit) caps, and now a service that allow them to take advantage of that.”
The service is available to Shaw customers through the Shaw Gateway (for Calgary and Edmonton-based customers, with Vancouver and other markets to follow), and through Shaw Video On Demand On-line. Titles may also be searched and ordered via the company’s VOD app for iPhone and Android.
