Crave (TV network)
Crave is a Canadian premium television network and streaming service owned by the Bell Media subsidiary of BCE Inc.
Launched in 1983 as the national service First Choice, early difficulties and a subsequent industry restructuring led to its operations being restricted to Eastern Canada from 1984 to 2016; it then held a regional legal monopoly on movie-based premium TV services in its territory until the launch of the present-day Super Channel in 2007. The service changed its name to The Movie Network in 1993. In 2016, when Movie Central wound down its operations, TMN resumed national operations and subsumed the former service's subscribers.
In 2018, TMN merged its operations with the over-the-top streaming service CraveTV; both services would be rebranded as Crave. With these changes, the streaming service added a premium tier, "Movies + HBO", which includes access to the premium content that was previously exclusive to the TMN and its Canadian HBO multiplex. Likewise, the television version of the service distributed by providers featured access to the on-demand library of the former CraveTV service as part of their subscription. As such, the service was often sold by providers under the name Crave + Movies + HBO, until programming from both tiers was collapsed into a single library in October 2021. Since then, the Crave service sold by TV service providers has been equivalent to the Crave Total ad-free OTT plan.
For regulatory purposes, the Crave streaming service and specialty television service are considered to be separate operations.
History
Development
In 1976, Communications Minister Jeanne Sauvé was quoted as saying " pay television is inevitable". During the 1970s when premium television service HBO and the then up-and-coming Atlanta, Georgia superstation WTBS became available via satellite in North America, some Canadians who were living in underserved rural areas, wanted access to these services. The Saskatchewan government together with Cable Regina set up a provincial pay television network called Teletheatre in 1979.Growth of grey market television receive-only dishes by 1980 led the Canadian government under the administration of Pierre Trudeau to allow for pay television in Canada, and that there would be hearings to license pay television networks in Canada. In September 1981, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission held a hearing in Hull, Quebec to license Canada's first pay television networks. There were more than 24 applicants to start such services.
When First Choice Canadian Communications Corp. made its application to the CRTC in September 1981, the individuals and companies involved in the proposed channel included Donald Sobey, J. R. McCaig, Norman Keevil, television producer Riff Markowitz, Royfund Equity Ltd., AGF Management Ltd. and Manufacturers Life Insurance Co. Together, they had $19 million in equity financing and proposed to spend $310.4 million over five years on Canadian television production. Estimated profit would be $3.1 million. A pay television licence was issued by the CRTC to First Choice on March 18, 1982. The channel's first president was Donald MacPherson.
At the time that First Choice applied to the CRTC, it estimated that to program major American movies, entertainment specials and Canadian movies and specials, pay for satellite time, and marketing of the channel, it could sell it to the cable companies at a wholesale rate of $7.50 each month. However, by the time the channel launched, and providers received their revenue from the pay television services, the retail cost of First Choice jumped significantly to $15.95.
Launch and evolution
When First Choice was launched on February 1, 1983, it operated as a national premium service; the network's original slogan was "Look Out for Number One! Look Out for First Choice!" The network inaugurated programming with a two-hour promotional reel announcing the programming that First Choice would carry, followed by a replay of The Who's farewell tour concert special; the airing of The Who concert which had been aired live on other channels in Canada the year before, as well as the two-hour promotional ad had several critics wondering about the channel's claims that it would be commercial-free and not play reruns. These programs were followed by the first movie ever to be broadcast on First Choice, For Your Eyes Only.At 10 a.m. Eastern/7 a.m. Pacific Time that day, First Choice aired Star Wars and continued to replay the film every other day for eight hours. The channel offered its programming for free for 14 days starting with the channel's first day of operation, before it was scrambled, except to those subscribers who wanted to pay the extra fee to continue receiving the channel. Before the advent of stereo television and home theatre systems, subscribers who paid for cable FM service could receive a stereo feed of First Choice. During its first year, First Choice aired a two-hour block of programming from the American adult-oriented pay service The Playboy Channel as part of a late night programming block on Fridays.
Image:The Movie Network 1996 logo.gif|right|thumb|160px|The "TMN" logo, as it was used from Spring 1996 until 2001.
After a disappointing run for pay services in general, the industry was restructured in late 1983 and into 1984, and First Choice's service area was restricted to Canadian provinces east of the Ontario-Manitoba border, with competitor Superchannel taking territorial rights to the west of that border. As part of this restructuring, film production company Astral Bellevue Pathé took a controlling interest in First Choice, and its principal owner Harold Greenberg became the channel's new president; Astral became sole owner by 1993.
The two regional services used the First Choice-Superchannel name from 1984 to 1988, before they were split again in September 1988. Beginning in 1984, First Choice also made use of the slogan "The Movie Network"; this became the name of the channel itself in 1993.
First Choice was originally granted a bilingual licence; it also operated a 24-hour French-language channel under the same licence, which was called Premier Choix. In early 1984, that service was merged with another Quebec-based pay-television network, TVEC, to form Super Écran, which continues to exist today. On October 1, 1994, The Movie Network launched a companion film service, TMN Moviepix.
On July 5, 2013, Astral Media was acquired by Bell Media.
End of duopoly, further developments
For many years, the de facto twin regional monopolies of The Movie Network and Movie Central have been criticised. At the time, no other similar premium services had broadcast within Canada. Critics argued that this limited competition and consumer choice, while proponents said that there was very little in content or functionality that was not already offered by the existing services. In July 2005, the CRTC, the Canadian federal broadcast regulator, announced that public hearings would begin on October 24 of that year on four applications for new national pay television licences from different groups. Each applicant claimed that they would commit to invest and develop more Canadian-produced programming content. On May 18, 2006, the CRTC announced that had accepted an application by Allarco Entertainment, while the other three were rejected. This approved application effectively ended The Movie Network/Movie Central duopoly in Canada. On November 2, 2007, the new service was launched as Super Channel.On November 19, 2015, Movie Central owner Corus Entertainment announced that as a result of a strategic review, it had decided to exit the pay TV business to concentrate on its national specialty channels, and would discontinue Movie Central along with Encore Avenue. To that end, Corus reached an agreement with Bell through which TMN became a national service once again on March 1, 2016, with Movie Central customers automatically transitioning to TMN. TMN Encore also expanded nationally for the first time, and Bell took over full operation of HBO Canada. Although Bell did not buy the Movie Central licence, it paid Corus C$211 million in exchange for Corus' assistance in allowing TMN's national expansion. The CRTC had quietly given administrative approval to applications to allow TMN and TMN Encore to operate nationally in July 2015, so no further regulatory approval was required. This meant that Bell was not required to fund a public benefits package worth 10% of the transaction value, as would typically be required by the CRTC in the event of a licence transfer.
On January 23, 2018, Bell Media announced that it had reached new licensing deals with Lionsgate and subsidiary company Starz Inc., under which the former held Canadian pay television window rights to the latter's releases and TMN Encore was rebranded as a Canadian Starz channel in 2019.
Merger with CraveTV, relaunch as a hybrid VOD service
In October 2018, a Rogers Cable service bulletin stated that beginning in November, The Movie Network subscribers would begin to receive Bell's over-the-top subscription service CraveTV as part of their service.On November 1, 2018, Bell announced that CraveTV had merged with The Movie Network, with both services renamed Crave. Under the service's new structure, subscribers to the existing CraveTV OTT service may upgrade their subscription to a $19.98 "Crave + Movies + HBO" tier, that adds the content formerly associated with TMN. This marks the first time that the service formerly known as The Movie Network has been offered on a standalone basis without a television subscription. Existing TMN television subscribers are also able to access the content library of the base Crave service as part of their subscription, which includes various television series as well as new and existing Showtime programming. The original OTT-only service without films or current HBO programming remained available at its existing $9.99 price. Bell Media head Randy Lennox cited increasing competition with Netflix as a basis for the decision.
In 2021, Crave realigned its plans to be based on device support and concurrent streams rather than libraries, with the $9.99 service becoming "Crave Basic" and only offering one stream on a mobile device or web browser, and the "Crave Total" tier offering up to four streams, and support for apps on connected devices.