Rogers today unveiled grand plans to invest $1.5 billion over 10 to 15 years to develop a 10-tower condo development in Mississauga, dubbed M City. The land was originally purchased by company founder Ted Rogers for $170,000, a generation ago. The development is a family-run project, independent of Rogers Communications.
The company’s deputy chairman—and son of the late Ted Rogers—Edward Rogers, did comment on the announcement of the impending shutdown of the company’s streaming service, shomi, though, reports Reuters.
Rogers said “We’ve aspired to move beyond just the television, and Shomi was one foray into that.” He continued to say “While that didn’t work to what was planned, it hasn’t diminished our enthusiasm and hunger to invest,” referring to the company’s plans to launch Internet-based television by year’s end.
Shomi was a failed experiment that lasted two years (a partnership with Shaw), and is expected to hit the company with a $100-$140 million write down, for the third quarter, ending September 30th. The service will end as of November 30, 2016.
Cue the Closing Credits. Unfortunately, shomi will be shutting down as of Nov. 30, 2016. These past 2 years have been amazing & we thank you
— shomi (@shomicanada) September 26, 2016
Rival Bell, already has 1.27 million IPTV customers, so Rogers has some work to do to catch up.
Despite the setback, Rogers emphasized he still sees the company as a dividend growth stock, adding “We are committing to our company, committed to the people that own our shares and thanking them and giving back to them in the form of dividends as the company grows.”
Shomi was a nice attempt, but it’s not that easy to just launch a streaming service and instantly compete with the Silicon Valley gurus at Netflix. Will Bell’s CraveTV be next on the chopping block?
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Primarily a tv show service offered only to people who have cable (Shaw/Rogers)? Where could they possibly have gone wrong?
It was available for everyone a long time ago!
They obviously didn’t do a good job in advertising that, if you still have people with that perception.
I left Netflix to Shomi after Netflix enforced geoblocking a while ago, now i don’t know if I should go back to Netflix even though I despise them as a company!
I liked Shomi, they had some nice shows that were not on Netflix, hate to seem them shut it down!
You despise Netflix over Rogers? Man, your priorities are all messed up.
lol I know Rogers are evil but with Shomi I was at least supporting a Canadian business even if they don’t deserve the support!
Technology it sucks hard. No Linux support, very CPU intensive on windows and frequent crashes on Firefox (windows).
I have this service included with my rogers internet, but still happy with Netflix.
They are (were) all basically the same price since Netflix upped their rate. With no contracts I’ve just been jumping back and forth between all three services using my Apple TV. No complaints…. Just hope Netflix and Crave get access to the content Shomi had.
All of these streaming services – and the users who take advantage of them – rely on bandwidth. And, short of the pricier internet offerings out there offering ‘unlimited’ service with no caps, these services (and reasonable daily use of your internet) will burn thru your subscribed service in little time. Shomi and Crave (so Rogers, Shaw, Bell) not only charge a monthly subscription service, but then ding you with pricier internet plans / overage penalties to cover it. All’s good for them. Rogers recent offer of ‘free’ Netflix might cover the subscription price, but they’ll make it back on internet caps – especially as Canada has some of the smallest caps / priciest internet anywhere.
Sure you can go 3rd Party (like TekSavvy), but in the end, you end up with the Big Three’s ‘last mile’ service and what they deign to offer these 3rd Party providers.