When Netflix crossed the border into Canada in the fall of 2010—its very first international expansion—the Canadian media establishment didn’t blink. For decades, a comfortable oligopoly of telecommunications giants like Bell Media, Rogers Communications, and Shaw Communications had controlled both the infrastructure that piped content into homes and the exclusive domestic broadcast rights for the most popular American television shows.
But by 2014, the digital landscape had radically shifted. The phenomenon of “cord-cutting” was accelerating, and broadband internet was becoming the primary delivery mechanism for entertainment. The Canadian titans realized that licensing their premium exclusive content to a rapidly growing American tech company was a self-defeating strategy. Every hit show they handed to Netflix was another reason for a Canadian family to cancel their traditional cable package.
They needed their own digital platforms. This realization triggered an unprecedented arms race in Canadian broadcasting, culminating in a platform that would ultimately redefine how Canadians consume premium television: crave.ca/begin.
The Pre-Launch Arms Race and “Project Latte”
In August 2014, Rogers and Shaw fired the first shot, announcing a joint venture called Shomi, a streaming service designed to take on Netflix directly. Bell Media, Canada’s largest multimedia conglomerate, was already deep into its own counter-offensive. Operating under the internal codename “Project Latte”—a cheeky nod to the service’s planned $4.00 CAD monthly price tag—Bell was building a digital fortress.
On October 30, 2014, Bell officially unveiled Project Latte to the public, rebranding it as CraveTV. To ensure the service made an immediate splash, Bell aggressively leveraged its massive purchasing power to secure an unparalleled launch library.
When CraveTV went live on December 11, 2014, it hit the market with over 10,000 hours of premium programming. Its indisputable crown jewel was the exclusive Canadian streaming rights to the entire off-air library of HBO. For the first time, Canadians had unlimited, on-demand access to the complete runs of legendary series like The Sopranos, The Wire, and Sex and the City. Alongside this premium drama, Bell secured heavy-hitting syndicated comedies, including Seinfeld and The Big Bang Theory.
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The Walled Garden Strategy
Despite an incredible catalog and a shockingly low introductory price of just $4.00 per month, the launch of CraveTV was defined by a highly controversial distribution model. In its original incarnation, CraveTV was not actually a true competitor to Netflix; it was a sophisticated defensive mechanism designed to protect Bell’s aging legacy cable business.
Bell engineered CraveTV as a “walled garden.” You could not simply download an app, enter your credit card, and start streaming. Access was strictly gated: a consumer had to already be a paying subscriber to a participating traditional television provider (like Bell Fibe, Telus Optik TV, or Eastlink) to sign up for CraveTV.
If you were part of the growing demographic of cord-cutters who only paid for home internet, CraveTV was entirely inaccessible to you. The business logic was transparent. Bell wanted to make the streaming service so cheap and so rich in content that it would act as a powerful anchor, convincing Canadians that retaining their expensive traditional cable packages was worth it.
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The Backlash and The Tipping Point
The walled garden strategy immediately drew fire. Consumers who had already cut the cord were deeply frustrated that they were locked out of a domestic platform holding the rights to their favorite shows. Consumer advocacy groups raised the alarm, arguing to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) that tying a digital streaming service to a legacy television subscription was fundamentally anti-competitive.
The public pressure, combined with shifting regulatory attitudes that favored open internet access, forced Bell Media into a corner. Furthermore, by ignoring cord-cutters, Bell was leaving massive amounts of potential subscription revenue on the table. They had to pivot.
Project Latte Revealed
October 2014
Bell Media announces its new television-focused streaming service, targeting a launch price equivalent to a cup of coffee.
CraveTV Launches
December 2014
The service officially goes live, but restricts access solely to existing subscribers of participating traditional cable and satellite television providers.
Direct-to-Consumer Pivot
January 2016
Responding to regulatory pressure and market demands, CraveTV uncouples from cable and launches over-the-top for $7.99/month.
The TMN Merger
November 2018
CraveTV merges with the linear pay-TV channel The Movie Network (TMN), rebrands as “Crave,” and introduces current-season premieres.
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Tearing Down the Walls
On January 14, 2016, Bell Media executed the most crucial strategic shift in the platform’s history. They officially uncoupled CraveTV from traditional cable subscriptions. The platform was relaunched as a direct-to-consumer, over-the-top (OTT) service available to absolutely any Canadian with an internet connection, priced at $7.99 per month.
To herald this new era, Bell launched a massive nationwide marketing blitz anchored by the tagline “Stream On!”—shifting public perception from a restricted specialty channel to a universally accessible, premium streaming platform.
This move proved vital for survival. The Canadian streaming market in 2016 was simply not large enough to support three major competitors (Netflix, CraveTV, and Shomi). While CraveTV was aggressively expanding its reach and investing in original programming—most notably commissioning a little-known YouTube web series that would become the massive hit Letterkenny—its primary domestic rival was struggling.
In late 2016, Rogers and Shaw abruptly announced they were pulling the plug on Shomi. They cited an inability to achieve long-term profitability in a landscape increasingly dominated by global tech giants. With Shomi out of the way, CraveTV stood entirely alone as the sole Canadian-owned streaming platform capable of competing at scale.
Merging Past and Present
By 2018, CraveTV had secured millions of subscribers, but it still suffered from one major structural limitation: it was essentially a massive archive. While subscribers could binge older seasons of HBO shows, they could not watch current episodes as they aired. To get day-and-date premieres of contemporary premium television, Canadians still had to pay a steep fee for Bell’s traditional linear pay-TV channel, The Movie Network (TMN).
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In November 2018, Bell Media finally erased the artificial boundary between its legacy broadcasting arm and its digital future. The company dissolved the TMN brand entirely, merging its current-season premium content directly into the streaming platform. Reflecting this massive expansion in scope, the “TV” was dropped from the name, and the service was relaunched simply as Crave.
With the introduction of a new tiered pricing model, Canadians could finally pay a premium to stream new episodes of flagship HBO and Showtime series at the exact moment they aired on live television.
The early days of Crave represent a masterclass in necessary corporate adaptation. What began as a highly restricted, defensive experiment designed to protect an aging business model was eventually allowed to adapt, evolve, and ultimately cannibalize the very model it was built to defend. By surviving those turbulent early years and aggressively pivoting from a walled garden to a comprehensive, direct-to-consumer powerhouse, Crave successfully built a permanent Canadian footprint in the global streaming wars.
