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TMN rebrands as Crave

41K views 112 replies 33 participants last post by  Dr.Dave 
#1 · (Edited)
Bell Media's The Movie Network, HBO Canada and CraveTV Come Together as the All-New Crave
(Full Press Release follows)

– HBO programming now also available directly to Canadians for the first time ever –
– New Crave features acclaimed programming from SHOWTIME, STARZ, and VICE, WOW! children's content, Hollywood hit movies, and more –
– TMN rebrands as Crave across all platforms –

TORONTO, Nov. 1, 2018 /CNW/ - Bell Media announced today the all-new Crave, featuring a catalogue of some of the most sought-after content in the world and more Emmy Award-winning programming than any other service in Canada. For the first time ever, current HBO programming, including new episodes of GAME OF THRONES, as well as box-office hits such as Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Wonder Woman, are available directly to all Canadians with access to the Internet. Additionally, Pay TV service The Movie Network (TMN) rebrands as Crave today, making the brand ubiquitous across all platforms.

The all-new Crave is available through participating television providers today and directly to consumers as of Monday, November 5 on Crave.ca, iOS, and Android. Crave becomes available on additional platforms in the coming weeks, including the ability to subscribe directly via the Crave app on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV.

Crave's exceptional entertainment offering is home to HBO, SHOWTIME, Hollywood hit movies, VICE programming, a superior collection of kids' content including movies as well as programs from WOW! Unlimited Media, and thousands of hours of acclaimed television series and original programming not found anywhere else.

The new Crave is an unrivalled value proposition offered in two packages – Crave and Crave + Movies + HBO – giving Canadians flexibility to choose the programming that best suits their needs.

"We're excited to present one of the best entertainment offerings in North America, delivering thousands of hours of prestige programming at an unbeatable value," said Randy Lennox, President, Bell Media. "Crave is immediately positioning itself as the leading option in Canada's increasingly competitive streaming and SVOD market."

"As HBO continues to create ground-breaking content, movies are bringing in record-breaking Pay TV audiences, and family-friendly titles continue to be some of the most popular On Demand and SVOD selections," said Tracey Pearce, President, Distribution and Pay, Bell Media. "This is the content Canadians crave, and we're delivering it on whatever platform they want."

The Platforms

  • Crave is available today through participating television providers across Canada. This gives consumers the added opportunity to access the Crave linear channels on traditional set-top boxes, as well as via On Demand channels, through the Crave app (iOS and Android), and online at Crave.ca. Customers should contact their television provider for pricing and details on how to subscribe.
  • Crave is available as of Monday, November 5 directly to all Canadians with access to the Internet at Crave.ca, and via the Crave app on iOS and Android. Over the coming weeks, Crave will become available on all other partner platforms such as Apple TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TVs, and Amazon Fire TV.

Direct Packages

  • Offered at $9.99/month (plus applicable taxes), an Internet-only subscription to Crave includes exclusive access to more than 11,000 hours of content such as Crave Originals, current SHOWTIME programming, select HBO library content and previous seasons of some current HBO hits, a collection of VICE programming, acclaimed TV series, kids' programming from WOW! Unlimited Media, and much more. Visit Crave.ca/subscribe for more information.
  • For an additional $9.99/month ($19.98 total plus applicable taxes), Crave + Movies + HBO includes all the great content mentioned above, plus HBO's current lineup of ground-breaking series, movies, documentaries and specials, and some of the best Hollywood-hit movies, spanning all genres. Visit Crave.ca/subscribe for more information.

Television Service Provider Packages
Crave packages are available across Canada through participating television service providers. TV subscribers should contact their provider for pricing details and availability.

The Content

On Crave:
  • The SHOWTIME Collection, which includes current programming like RAY DONOVAN, KIDDING, BILLIONS, THE AFFAIR, ESCAPE AT DANNEMORA, PATRICK MELROSE, WHO IS AMERICA?, THE CHI, as well as past SHOWTIME hits such as DEXTER, TWIN PEAKS, EPISODES, CALIFORNICATION, and PENNY DREADFUL.
  • The extensive HBO Collection, featuring HBO's vast off-air library with classics such as THE SOPRANOS, THE WIRE, SEX AND THE CITY, ENTOURAGE, GIRLS, and more, plus select past seasons of HBO hits like GAME OF THRONES, BALLERS, INSECURE, and BIG LITTLE LIES.
  • Recent watercooler hits such as THE HANDMAID'S TALE, STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, KILLING EVE, CASTLE ROCK, and more.
  • The VICE Collection, featuring buzz-worthy titles like THE HUNT FOR THE TRUMP TAPES WITH TOM ARNOLD, the Emmy-nominated GAYCATION with Ellen Page, MOST EXPENSIVEST, F*CK THAT'S DELICIOUS, and THE TRIXIE & KATYA SHOW. Additional titles will join the collection early next year.
  • Complete libraries of some of TV's most iconic series like SEINFELD, CHEERS, FRASIER, and more.
  • The Comedy Central Collection, featuring Seasons 1-21 of SOUTH PARK, NATHAN FOR YOU, BROAD CITY, and more.
  • Two Kid's Collections from WOW! Unlimited Media featuring THE ADVENTURES OF PADDINGTON BEAR, LEAGUE OF SUPER EVIL, THE PALS, and all four original seasons of REBOOT, plus the upcoming PEPPA PIG, WORLD OF QUEST, DOODLEBOPS ROADSHOW, and more.
  • A limited-time offering of Starz content, such as COUNTERPART, VIDA, and SWEETBITTER, plus select previous seasons of POWER and PARTY DOWN.
  • Crave Originals like the award-winning comedy LETTERKENNY, Crave Original stand-up specials created in partnership with Just For Laughs, the upcoming in-depth interview series MUCH STUDIOS PRESENTS: MIKE ON MUCH, and upcoming satirical dramedy NEW EDEN.

On Crave + Movies + HBO:
The thousands of hours of unrivalled television programming mentioned above, PLUS:

  • HBO's current lineup of ground-breaking series, movies, documentaries and specials such as GAME OF THRONES, WESTWORLD, SHARP OBJECTS, LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER, REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER, CAMPING, THE DEUCE, THE SHOP, the upcoming miniseries MY BRILLIANT FRIEND, and all-new seasons of TRUE DETECTIVE and VEEP.
  • Hollywood-hit movies from most major movie studios spanning all genres, such as Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Wonder Woman, Pitch Perfect 3, Fifty Shades Freed, The Greatest Showman, Pacific Rim Uprising, Rampage, Red Sparrow, and countless others.
  • An expanded Crave Kids Collection, featuring family-friendly movies like Despicable Me 3, The Lego Ninjago Movie, Ferdinand, The Boss Baby, and Paddington 2.

TMN and TMN Encore Rebrand

  • The former TMN Pay TV linear channels are now rebranded as Crave 1, Crave 2, Crave 3, Crave 4, HBO Canada 1, and HBO Canada 2.
  • TMN Encore Pay TV channels are now Encore 1 and Encore 2. As was previously announced, Starz and Bell Media have entered into an exclusive, long-term alliance to bring Starz to Canada, with TMN Encore rebranding in 2019.
  • Former TMN subscribers now have access to thousands of hours of additional content through Crave.ca and the Crave app not available to them before, such as the award-winning Canadian comedy series LETTERKENNY, plus watercooler TV hits like THE HANDMAID'S TALE, KILLING EVE, STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, and CASTLE ROCK.
  • TMN GO will be decommissioned and users will now access their on-demand content through the all-new Crave app, or by logging into Crave.ca with credentials from their television service provider.

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:
@ CraveCanada
@ CraveCanadaPR
@ HBOCanada
Facebook/HBOCanada
Instagram/HBOCanada

About Crave:
Delivering more Emmy Award-winning programming than any other service, Crave is Canada's prestige entertainment offering, with HBO, SHOWTIME, Starz, Hollywood-hit movies, a superior collection of kid's movies and programs, and thousands of hours of acclaimed television series, specials, factual programming, and originals that can't be found anywhere else. Crave is the exclusive home of HBO in Canada, delivering HBO's current slate of signature dramatic and comedic programs, documentaries, films, and live specials, as well as titles from HBO's extensive off-air library. Crave is also home to current SHOWTIME series and specials, and past SHOWTIME hits. Crave is available directly to all Canadians with access to the Internet via iOS and Android, and other platforms. It's also available through participating television providers across six 24-hour High Definition linear and on demand channels. Crave is from Bell Media, Canada's leading content company, providing Canada's most-watched and most-acclaimed television programming on network, specialty, pay and digital platforms. Visit our website at Crave.ca.
 
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#41 ·
Direct subscription to Crave + Movies + HBO is available starting today. There is no difference in content compared to subscribing through a TV provider. The subscribe page has a matrix of the different content available with the 2 subscriptions.

Volume subscriptions to Crave + Movies + HBO are coming soon. If you already have a prepaid Crave subscription, (eg. annual) you can add the Movies + HBO as an add-on for $9.99/month.

I just tried it out with my Shaw Direct account and it works great so far on my Apple TV 3.
I saw this on the Crave.ca subscribe page:
Gen 3 Apple TVs have reduced features and don't have live streaming capability
 
#32 ·
I got the following response from Crave regarding their lack of a schedule on the website. This is not an "auto-reply".
Thank you for your email. Here at Crave it is always a pleasure to hear from our subscribers and to address any comments or concerns you may have.

We apologize for any inconvenience that you experienced with the latest version of Crave.
Thank you for your feedback, we will pass this to the concerned department.

If there would be further inquiries you may contact us or you may check our website.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.

Sincerely,

XXX
Customer Care Representative
Let's see if anything happens...
 
#33 ·
At the very least they should bring back TMN.ca and HBOCanada.com while they send the web designers back to the drawing board. Those sites had 2 months of schedules and a search function that worked, so that would be a stopgap solution even if they didn't update those sites.

----

It looks like some providers are increasing prices on their TMN/HBO package, namely Shaw and Eastlink.

Here's the Shaw announcement of the rebranding and price changes (you will still save money if you subscribed to TMN/HBO and Crave.)
community.shaw.ca/docs/DOC-17114

----

MTS has a matrix of what's available in each package and how you can watch it. Click on the How to watch link at
https://www.bellmts.ca/personal/tv/premium-entertainment/crave

MTS doesn't have Set Top Box On Demand for basic Crave, but other providers might. Here's a summary of the MTS packages to help understand the matrix.
Crave $7.99/mo.
Crave + Movies + HBO $18.00/mo.
Movies and Series Pack $20.00/mo. - includes the above plus the Encore channels, the future home of STARZ.
 
#34 ·
ExDilbert said:
As noted in the Rogers Crave FAQ link in post #26.

What devices can I use the new Crave app with?

The Crave app is currently available for iOS, Android, Apple TV, Samsung Smart TVs (2014 – 2018), Xbox One, Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV Stick, and Amazon Fire TV. Simply sign in with your MyRogers ID and password to access your Crave subscription.
So does that mean my 2012 Samsung Smart TV (which still has the TMN Go app on it but the app says "Crave app coming soon!" when I log into it) won't be able to use Crave?
 
#35 ·
Give it a try after the 15th of November when such apps are supposed to work. Perhaps with appropriate firmware updates your TV will work. No guarantees obviously.

Someone posted the following over on the Rogers forum:

You can subscribe to Crave directly by visiting Crave.ca/subscribe, or through your television provider. It’s also available on iOS and Android. By November 15, Crave will be available on all partner platforms, such as AppleTV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TVs, and Amazon Fire TV.

A subscription to Crave or Crave + Movies + HBO will give you access on Web, iOS and Android. By November 15, Crave will be available on all partner platforms, such as AppleTV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TVs, and Amazon Fire TV.
From the Crave TV website:

https://www.crave.ca/help-and-frequently-asked-questions-74295754
 
#42 ·
Gen 3 Apple TVs have reduced features and don't have live streaming capability
I didn't even know Crave had a live streaming option, I thought it was just all on demand.

Not a big deal for me though. I would likely be watching anything live on my regular satellite receiver. I can pause live TV with my DVR, and I'm guessing that isn't possible with Crave live streaming. I just tried one of the live channels on my iPad and there is a pause button, but as soon as you press play again it skips back to live. So not really a pause button :grin

Shaw has had an app called Freerange TV for quite a while that lets you watch select channels live streaming over the internet. No pause button there either, so I've never used the app.

I'm planning to use Crave to watch some back catalog shows that I've been interested in but never watched before (Carnival on HBO, Letterkenny).
 
#43 ·
Can't believe you did not know Crave had a Standalone Over the Top steaming option. it really depends how your accessing it. When I used to have Bell TV, I had TMN - The Movie Network package with HBO and TMN Encore. So on my receiver, there was the VOD option, TMN and HBO had its own menu icon for VOD, I also think TMN Encore had one too, then Crave had its own VOD menu icon too. I could play, pause, rewind, etc thru my receiver. Then I was also able to download and use TMN Go on my tablet, and as well the Crave TV app on my tablet. I also had the ability to chromecast it to one of my TV sets which was not hooked up to my satellite. So now that they consolidated it, it appears you now only need one app instead of 2 like I was using back in the day. Also I think Bell was the only provider to include Crave TV with your TMN subscription, correct me if i'm wrong tho.
 
#44 ·
forgot to mention one thing, if i was watching a movie or show on tmn or crave or hbo on my receiver and paused it, then when I turned off the tv and opened my tablet and launched the app, i could resume playback from where I left off, pretty neat eh? not all movies or shows supported this tho, some had a special icon of a tablet to identify such feature which was cool.
 
#45 ·
The live feature is new (obviously) and will allow people who subscribe to "Crave + Movies + HBO" directly, without a TV provider, to watch the channels live, without having to wait for the shows to be added to On Demand.

Here's something else I saw in the Help page:

What’s happening to The Movie Network Encore (TMN Encore)?
Former TMN subscribers who had TMN Encore can access this content on the linear channels (which are now Encore 1 and Encore 2), on demand, or on television provider apps. As previously announced, TMN Encore is rebranding as Starz in early 2019. For a limited time, you can enjoy select Starz programming – such as COUNTERPART, VIDA, and SWEETBITTER – as part of a subscription to Crave.
That sounds like Starz programming won't be included in the basic Crave service once Encore rebrands to Starz, so you should watch your Starz series before 2019.
 
#46 ·
Can't believe you did not know Crave had a Standalone Over the Top steaming option.
I did know that. What I didn't know is that they have a live streaming option as well. Essentially whatever is playing live on HBO right now, can be streamed live via Crave. As far as I can tell, you cannot pause these in Crave at all.

The only things in Crave you can pause are the on demand shows (what you are describing)
 
#47 ·
The live streaming of the former tmn channels is new, even I did not know that until I saw someone I know log into the app and took a glance. of course you can not pause these, theyre live streams, you need a pvr to pause and rewind and resume live streams. we are so used to the vod model of netflix we forget that actual live streams existed before this and we never had issues with not being able to pause, rewind, or skip fwd
 
#48 ·
Theoretically it could be possibly to pause the live streams as long as there is local storage available. It would just use the local storage as a buffer. The newer Apple TV's have 32GB of storage. Crave looks like it maxes out at 2.5GB/hour, so providing a certain amount of local buffer could be possible. I doubt they would do it though.
 
#54 ·
A few weeks ago, I couldn't sleep as my wife was snoring like a sealion plus I had severe stomach cramps. I went into the den and turned on the TV and ran through the TMN channels. I checked out 282 and was blown-away by what was being broadcast:anal intercourse! So, I wasn't too surprised that they dropped the Adult content in their package. Most likely, somebody brought this to the attention of the CRTC and they took action.
 
#57 ·
Making channels available to a wider audience often results in content restrictions. When CITY expanded outside of Toronto the CRTC ruled they had to stop showing their "blue movies" in early morning hours. I guess they thought it would offend or corrupt us country rubes who live outside the GTA. They also started showing their prime time movies in edited for TV format instead of unedited. Someone at Bell probably felt that pornography was not suitable for the Crave brand. They can probably make more money by shifting it over to premium pornography channels anyway.
 
#58 ·
I'm not too happy with the "All New Crave". I'm on Cogeco and once everything rebranded I went to want a movie on Demand only to find out that everything was HD only (don't have any HD boxes). I was speaking to someone from Cogeco last night and they informed me that Crave is only adding HD on Demand, they told me my options are to add TMN Encore bringing the package price up to $25 or get HD boxes. I have Chromecasts on all of my TVs so I can watch the movies like that, but on a 175GB internet package, I'm not going to be watching much. Thanks for NOTHING BELL!
 
#61 ·
I hate to break it to you but this is not just affect Crave. The industry is moving away from SD / SD VOD. If you are still using Standard Definition in 2018, I hate to break it to you but you are pretty much already on a dead end road.
Some TV providers only offer Video On Demand for their HD boxes, such as Bell Satellite TV. The Satellite HD PVR that bell offers is an HD box for example, so someone still using SD can not get vod unless they replace their box. Netflix is HD only, so if u want netflix on a SD tv you need some kind of smart device wich is HD. sorry but its the way everything is and will become.
 
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