Source: Globe and Mail

Astral Media releases The Movie Network GO, allowing subscribers to watch HBO and Movie Network programs on their mobile devices. Canadians can now watch HBO and Movie Network programming on their computers and mobile devices, but only if they subscribe to the premium service through their television provider.

After more than a year in development, Astral Media Inc. released its mobile product Wednesday at its annual general meeting. The service, called The Movie Network GO, allows anyone who subscribes to HBO and The Movie Network to watch shows such as Game of Thrones, Girls and Boardwalk Empire (and hundreds of movies) when they are away from their televisions.

It is the type of product Canadian providers must develop if they are going to compete with foreign companies such as Netflix, said chief executive officer Ian Greenberg at the Montrealbased company’s annual general meeting, as he made the case for his company’s $3-billion merger with BCE Inc., which regulators have already rejected once but will reconsider this spring.

“The Canadian broadcasting system is undergoing rapid change driven mainly by the emergence of foreign Internetbased broadcasters,” said Mr. Greenberg. “These new services do very little to support our culture and our economy, do not create Canadian content, do not hire Canadians, do not pay taxes in this country.”

As more viewers turn to mobile devices to watch television and movies, television providers and content producers such as Astral are trying to find ways to keep them from dropping their services or downgrading to less expensive packages. Bell and Astral have said their proposed merger is designed to help Bell control the costs of acquiring content, and that together they could develop more products – such as Movie Network GO – to deliver programming to subscribers.

Astral and the cable and satellite providers that carry its channels think of HBO and Movie Network content as premium services that ensure customers don’t cut their cords in favour of offerings such as Netflix or look elsewhere for its programs.

“We are a month-to-month subscription service so retention is important,” said Domenic Vivolo, senior vice-president of sales and marketing. “And this is another way of trying to convince people not to pirate. If it’s easy, if it’s convenient, why would you pirate? You’ve got the best quality, instead of searching frantically and downloading viruses. We’re trying to make it as easy as possible for the consumer.”

Despite concerns about the effects of services such as Netflix, reports indicate the company isn’t actually eating away at cable and satellite subscriptions yet. Media Technology Monitor reported earlier this week that Netflix users were more likely than others to subscribe to premium cable packages that would include channels such as HBO.

That doesn’t comfort Canadian media executives, who warned that foreign competitors would overrun the Canadian system if regulators don’t allow companies such as Bell and Rogers Communications Inc. to bulk up on content that can be used to build their own competing products.

“The Canadian system was designed 40 years ago and hasn’t been updated for all of the changes in the industry,” Bell Media president Kevin Crull said, speaking at an event for writers and producers Tuesday. “How many of you filed an intervention in support of Astral’s acquisition by Bell? Not a lot. But do you think scale matters? Not a lot of you stepped forward to support that. But scale does matter, if we’re going to compete with Netflix and Google and Apple and things like that.”

Earlier this week, Vidéotron Ltée launched its subscription video-on-demand service called Illico Club Unlimited, which offers French viewers in Ontario and Quebec access to hundreds of French-language movies for just under $10 a month. “Netflix was not a big threat at first but we’ve seen their percentage quietly growing and we decided we must do something or else the market would be open only to them,” said Manon Brouillette, consumer market president at Vidéotron. Astral Media (ACM.A) Close: $48, up 20¢

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