The IT Nerd

My wife signed up for Netflix a few months ago hoping to catch up on all the movies and TV shows she missed as a kid. But after 5 months, she cancelled her subscription. Her reason for doing so was simple. There wasn’t enough content. A lot of the shows and movies that she wanted to see were simply not available. So the question is this: Why is that when US Netflix customers can see so much more?

The answer comes down to getting the rights to stream content. It appears that Netflix cannot get the rights to the shows and movies that you want to see in Canada. Meanwhile, GlobalTV, Citytv, CTV, and CBC have this same content that Netflix wants available for free. On top of that, you’ve also got Rogers Anyplace TV who not only does that, but offers movies too. Oh, to add to that there’s the juggernaut known as iTunes with all their content.

So that makes Netflix seem like a poor choice if you want to get the movies and TV shows you want. Will that improve? I don’t think so in the short term. One thing that you will notice in the previous paragraph is that with the exception of iTunes, everyone who does stream the content you want is owned by a telco who has a TV service that they make a pile of money from (be it cable, IPTV, or whatever). They don’t really have an interest in you going to somebody other than them to get content and tempting you to dump their TV services (otherwise known as “cutting the cord”). Thus, Netflix will be on the short end of the stick. Perhaps there needs to be some government intervention to change this so that Canadian consumers have some choice other than the usual group of telcos.

Until that happens, Netflix is not worth $8. It’s a pity that Canada is so backward when it comes to this sort of thing.

This entry was posted on March 9, 2013 at 11:09 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada, Netflix. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.