TORONTO – Roku announced today Bell Media’s CTV is now available on the Roku platform, giving Canadian Roku users access to the network’s live and on demand programming through the CTV app.
“The launch of CTV is an important milestone as we continue to build on providing Canadians with the best streaming experience possible,” said Mary-Anne Taylor, head of content distribution, Canada, at Roku, in a press release.
“With this launch, Roku users across the country have access to premium content such as live news, free movies and TV, and Canadian productions.”
This includes full episodes of shows, series and movies from CTV Comedy Channel, CTV Drama Channel, CTV Sci-Fi Channel, CTV Life Channel, Discovery, Animal Planet, E! and more. Additionally, CTV Throwback, CTV Movies and MTV will be available to viewers without a subscription or login from a service provider.
To access the CTV app on Roku’s platform, users need a Roku TV or a Roku streaming player. Prices for streaming players range from $39.99 to $189.99, according to the company’s website, depending on whether users want to stream in 4K and on features such as voice control.
CTV joins Bell Media’s Crave on the platform, as well as other channels including TVO, The Weather Network, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Tubi and the Roku Channel (which features Roku’s original content).
“What Roku does is it gives people an opportunity to watch those big global SVOD (subscription video on demand) channels that they want or Crave – Crave is a big SVOD channel in Canada – but also have all of this free ad-supported content available to them,” said Taylor, in an interview with Cartt.ca.
“Roku basically pioneered streaming TV back in 2008 and what we believe is that all TV and actually all ads will one day be streamed on TV,” she said. “We want to make sure that we are the streaming platform that connects the entire ecosystem.”
Taylor is responsible for launching channels on the platform, and she is working towards getting all the big channels Canadians want to watch (like CBC Gem) on Roku.
“There’s a lot more to come, which is really exciting,” she said. “It’s important for us to have both English and French where we can and I am specifically looking to try and build more French content on the platform as well.”
Part of Taylor’s role means explaining what Roku is and how big the company has become to those whose channels she wants to add to the platform.
“I have relationships with all of the different media companies and I work with them to make sure that they understand what Roku is, just how big Roku is, how much it is growing, not just in Canada, but internationally,” Taylor said.
The U.S.-headquartered company has been in Canada since 2012 and is also available around the world in places such as Latin America and the U.K. It launched in Brazil in January 2020 and in Germany last year.
Its popularity in Canada has grown – a study the company commissioned from Hypothesis Group says it is now the number one TV streaming platform in the country by hours streamed, according to today’s press release.
And it is not only popular with cord cutters.
“Interesting fact is that Roku’s audience in Canada actually matches the Canadian census,” Taylor said. “It’s not just for cord cutters or cord nevers or early adopters, it’s actually all of the generations – Millennials, Gen Z, etc. – they are all familiar with Roku.”
Taylor said they are seeing Roku in a lot of commercial places, and families are becoming more familiar with it.
“It’s interesting because a couple of years ago… Roku was not a household name,” she said. “But it’s actually starting to become a household name very organically, and that’s because our devices are very reasonable, and they have all the content they want on one streaming device.”
Image supplied by Roku.
