TORONTO – Customers of Rogers and Shaw will get their first look at subscription streaming service shomi on Tuesday.
While negotiations continue with other Canadian BDUs, shomi, a subscriber-authenticated streaming video service, will only be available in beta first to Rogers and Shaw Internet or cable customers, as the two companies co-own the venture.
Eligible Rogers customers can sign up and begin a 30-day free trial, after which customers can enjoy shomi for only $8.99 per month. The same terms apply to Shaw customers.
As an added benefit to select Rogers customers, shomi will be automatically included for Rogers Hybrid Fibre 50 and 60 or Extreme Internet customers and above until March 31, 2015. Shaw broadband customers will get an additional two free months of shomi through the app and web site.
Shomi is an effort which Cartt.ca began reporting in in January of this year (search the site for “Showmi”. We got a lot right covering this new service as programming deals were signed, but not the spelling…)
Canadians can enjoy shomi online, on select tablets and mobile devices, and on set top boxes. shomi will also be coming soon to Xbox 360 and Chromecast.
Shomi will feature “must-have hit titles you can’t get on any other video streaming service in Canada,” said Marc Dinsdale, general manager, shomi, in a press release noting the various content deals the service has with BBC, Warner Bros., Sony, Fox, and Starz, among others.
And the user interface is brand new, and created by Canadian company You.i, as we reported in the summer. “We know what matters to entertainment lovers, and it was imperative to us to bring the human experience back to video entertainment. The more digital things become, the more human we need to be. By putting a face to the service in how we curate our content and collections – and not solely relying on algorithms – we are delivering the best of both worlds and giving our customers what they want.”
Shomi will include nearly 12,000 hours of content in its first year and features prior seasons of the most popular shows on TV today, iconic series from the past, cult-classic and fan-favourite films, as well as a library of family-friendly kids programming.
It will have exclusives on past-season streaming rights to current hit TV shows not available on any other streaming service in Canada – such as 2 Broke Girls, American Horror Story, The Blacklist, Davinci’s Demons, Modern Family, New Girl, The Originals, Sleepy Hollow, Shameless, Sons of Anarchy, and Vikings. Shomi is also the home to first-window premieres, like A Young Doctor’s Notebook & Other Stories and iZombie, with premium content continually added to the service on an ongoing basis.
Enhanced features on shomi include Rotten Tomatoes ratings for movie titles, along with trailers and factoids, to help customers make their selections, while the user interface delivers “a unique theatrical experience,” says the release. Kids can easily choose something great to watch from a highly visual interface and have the ability to create their own profiles with fun avatars. With the ability to have up to six profiles per account, shomi customers can watch on two devices and their set top boxes at the same time.
