Waiting for your new AppleTV to arrive? Well if you live in Canada, one more piece of the puzzle just fell into place. Netflix, the DVD by mail and online streaming company just launched its service for Canadian subscribers today. Offering only online streaming for $7.99 a month, the service hopes to make inroads in the Canadian market, with no real competitors in the space.
Since the announcement that Netflix would be expanding its online streaming service to Canada several months ago, the netflix.ca site has been a placeholder site to sign up for information. Well, today it’s fully active, and you can sign up for a one month free trial. The streaming service works on your Mac or PC, your iPhone and iPad, as well as the Wii, and the PS3. Xbox 360 support is slated for “this fall” according to the website.
One issue that is always of concern to Canadians is that of content. Often shows are not available due to licensing restrictions, especially in the initial stages of a new product. For example, the iTunes Music Store TV show section was remarkably low on American television shows at launch, and only featured a handful of less popular shows. Reed Hastings, interviewed in the Financial Post, downplayed this concern.
“Well, I wouldn’t call it a stumbling block for us because we are licensing content for the Canadian market. Let me give you an example, Mad Men, a great show, we don’t yet have the rights for it in the U.S., so our U.S. subscribers can’t get access to it. But we’re going to have the rights to it at launch in Canada. So, with that particular show, our Canadian subscribers will have a huge leg up over our American subscribers.”
Looks like Canadians will have something to watch after all. Keep an eye on your bandwidth caps, ladies and gentlemen, the content is flowing!
Article via Financial Post.
