There are more options to stream TV shows, movies and music these days — from Netflix to Crave, Paramount+ to BritBox, and Rogers Sportsnet Now to Spotify.
But as those subscriptions add up, industry watchers point out that multiple options often come with a higher overall entertainment bill, with prices rising for services such as Disney+ and Spotify.
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That means for many Canadians, the days of subscribing to one affordable streaming platform are gone — and they won’t be coming back, experts say.
That’s what it feels like for Star Trek fan Dyre Scheer-Peters in Calgary.
He previously subscribed to Bell Media’s Crave to watch all of his favourite science fiction programs but was recently faced with having to add an additional monthly subscription to Paramount+ to keep watching Star Trek.
After Star Trek: The Next Generation left Bell Media’s Crave last month, Dyre Scheer-Peters had to add a $10 per month subscription to Paramount+ to keep watching. (Colin Hall/CBC)
The entire Star Trek series except for one migrated from the Bell-owned streaming service to a U.S.-based competitor.
“It’s all these extra purchases and such. It’s becoming very annoying,” said Scheer-Peters.
He said he had to keep his Crave subscription to be able to watch other programming.
“Crave had a bunch of stuff. It had almost everything,” he said. “It still has lots, but it has less than it used to, for the same price.”
Scheer-Peters has noticed. He says he now subscribes to multiple services totalling more than $100 each month in order to replace one or two services that used to include more programming at a lower price.
It’s a far cry from 2010, when Netflix first launched streaming in Canada for less than $10 a month. Many Canadians got used to paying for a single account and sharing the password among many users.
Scheer-Peters estimates he’s paying more than $100 a month for various streaming services. (Colin Hall/CBC)
Lower prices not ‘sustainable’ for streamers: analyst
The gradual increase in total costs for media consumers isn’t a surprise, says John Buffone, vice-president and media industry analyst at U.S.-based market research firm Circana.
“Inevitably, prices were going to go up,” said Buffone in an interview with CBC News from New York.
Experts, including Buffone, point out prices for streaming services stayed low even as costs rose.
“When these services launched, they were launched at loss-leader prices — prices that weren’t sustainable, that the companies knew weren’t sustainable,” he said.
John Buffone is an analyst with market research firm Circana, and says streaming companies want to make more profit — and are charging consumers more to increase returns. (Anis Heydari/CBC)
And as both U.S. and Canadian economies have shifted in recent years, investors and shareholders have become less willing to invest in companies that aren’t delivering immediate profits.
“Wall Street basically said to Netflix, ‘We want to see profitability, right? Subscriber growth is no longer going to be the bellwether of success for your company. We need to see profit coming from services,'” said Buffone.
Paramount+, Amazon Prime and Rogers declined requests for interviews from CBC News on this topic. Netflix and Bell Media, which owns Crave, did not respond to requests for comment.
Too many competitors and low margins
That message of low profit margins for streaming outlets is echoed by Vincent Georgie, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Windsor’s Odette School of Business and executive director of the Windsor International Film Festival.
He said companies want streaming profit margins to match the money they used to make from older, higher-priced cable and satellite TV bundles.
WATCH | Consumers warned to get used to paying more for streaming:
Streamers warned to get used to paying more
2 days ago
Duration 1:45
Streaming industry watchers warn that the days of low streaming bills are over as more services, like Netflix and Disney+, make moves to increase profitability.
“They’ve lost quite a bit and haven’t quite regained the profitability piece. There’s no doubt about that,” he said.
Echoing a famous Canadian retail slogan, the film industry expert pointed out that consumers need to just get used to higher prices overall.
“The lowest price is the law? As far as streamers go, that’s not coming back.”
Vincent Georgie, an assistant professor at the University of Windsor, says the low streaming prices of the past aren’t coming back. (Katerina Georgieva/CBC)
Georgie also predicts that with so many players, each charging between $10 and $20 a month, some services may not survive the competition.
“Some of these just will fold up; some will get acquired,” he said.
“I’m actually a bit surprised that it hasn’t shaken out yet because the margins aren’t attractive enough.”
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
