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  • Rogers Enters The Fray Of Offering More But Like The Others Does Not Go Far Enough

24th February 2012

Rogers Enters The Fray Of Offering More But Like The Others Does Not Go Far Enough

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Rogers Communications has unveiled NextBox™ 2.0, a suite of new features that will transform the home rogersentertainment experience, allowing people to access live and recorded TV programs from any room in the home – a repackaging and upgrading of the same services that are available through most of the service providers, but still not offering (in my opinion, which I continue later on this page) true viewing autonomy to Canadians.

“Canadians are increasingly looking for seamless, easy-to-use and flexible ways to fit all their favourite entertainment into their busy schedules—including the latest TV programming, movies, music and more,” said John Boynton, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Rogers Communications. “NextBox 2.0 makes next generation television technology a reality by delivering a whole home entertainment experience that gives our customers complete control over where, when and how they view their favourite shows and live programming.”

Through a proven infrastructure, Rogers NextBox 2.0 customers in Ontario now have access to:

  • Whole Home PVR: Watch your recorded shows from any TV in your home with a NextBox HD Terminal – from a single PVR.
  • Live TV on your tablet: A first in Canada, stream over 20 channels of your favourite live programming on your tablet anywhere in your home over your Wi-Fi connection and turn any room in the house into an entertainment zone.
  • An enhanced Interactive Program Guide: Richer and more intuitive viewing experience, with a sleek interface, seamless search options and a new on-demand portal.
  • More tailored cable and internet packages: Usage-based packaging options that let customers choose the service best suited to their needs.

“Rogers continues to bring technology innovations to the market that dramatically change home entertainment,” said Boynton. “From the launch of high speed internet, video-on-demand, on demand online and now live TV on your tablet, we’re committed to delivering world-leading internet experiences to our customers.”

As Canadian viewing habits evolve, Rogers continues to build on a proud history of innovative firsts and a commitment to investing in Canada’s digital future. By offering customers world-class content across multiple devices with Rogers Anyplace TV (formerly Rogers On Demand Online), Rogers customers can catch up on their favourite television programs on their PC, smartphone, tablet and Xbox LIVE.

Rogers may be “evolving” but as I said earlier, it’s really a regurgitation of what is available from every big carrier in the country. I’ve been told by other providers that TV packages are offered in such a way to meet the requirements of the CRTC and Canadian content laws. If this is the case, why not have packages where customers must choose X number of channels from the “Canadian” selection of channels as their base of add-ons, and then they can choose a certain number of other channels as they wish. This makes perfect sense to me – and might help people feel a bit more satisfied with television offerings, because they are given more control.

Certainly there can be pre-formed bundles for those who want every single sports or music channel available, but why can’t we choose the channels we want to watch? With the controls cable providers have, and with the technology available, surely there must be a way for those who wish to get the “documentary” slanted channels without having to get the “fluff” channels or channels they really don’t want. There was a time when almost all of the “specialty” channels had to be chosen a la carte, so why can’t we do that now?

When it comes right down to it, so many of these “Canadian” channels are so full of syndicated US-made shows and re-runs, I really don’t understand how they are considered to be part of the must-have Canadian channels – and why is Shaw the only provider to not carry Discovery Investigations?

Many Canadian consumers want Netflix and Hulu – with the same selection available elsewhere, but that will never happen with the myriad of programming available being held in the hands of the few – even though it could easily turn into a winning situation for the Canadian TV and film industry. So Shaw, Bell and Rogers fund shows – they can still recoup finances through licensing – and with higher data transfer and bandwidth speed plans for the streaming of TV products. In this day and age, do the big providers really still need to rule with an iron fist? Why not completely embrace the technology and viewing choices available to consumers and let them watch a wider variety of shows instead of filling so many time slots with re-runs of CBS shows?

I’m sure there are rules, regulations and reasoning behind the scenes that I am not aware of or don’t understand fully, however the solution to the problem seems to be rather obvious – but maybe that’s just me.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 24th, 2012 at 8:34 am and is filed under National News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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