Canadian Netflix Yet To Lead To Cord Cutting

by Etan Vlessing

That's the conclusion of a report this week from Media Technology Monitor that found one in ten Canadians surveyed said they subscribe to Netflix Canada, and most of those subscribers have opted not to cut their ties to a local cable or satellite TV service as they do so.

“More than 4 out of 5 Netflix subscribers also subscribe to TV from a regular provider, like cable or satellite,” Mark Allen, director, research and strategic analysis at CBC/Radio-Canada, and principal of the MTM’s research, reported.

Netflix Canada, which launched in September 2010 and costs $7.99 per month, has quickly become a favorite with TV consumers, further augmenting Candian pay TV services such as TMN or Movie Central which the MTM report indicated one-third of the approximately 8,000 survey respondents said they also subscribe to.

The Canadian survey indicates Netflix Canada subscribers spent an average of 5.6 hours a-week viewing films and TV shows on offer as part of the video streaming service.

Read More: Few Netflix Canada Subscribers Cut the (Cable) Cord (Survey) - The Hollywood Reporter

It's a tad bit early to say that Netflix in Canada isn't going to lead to cord cutting. I have several younger "cord cutting" friends, and in general, they discover Netflix, use both Netflix and multichannel video for a while, find their using Netflix more and multichannel less, and then make the jump to "cutting the cord." Generally it happens after they discover free broadcast TV for local channels and live sports.

Canada is a unique situation compared to US. Being such a large and sparsely populated country outside the big cities, companies are reluctant to invest in cable or fiber. And internet is now metered for a large portion of the population - 200GB to 25GB: Canada gets first, bitter dose of metered Internet Even OTA TV falls victim to the great distances involved. For many in the "great white North" all they can get is satellite TV. In fact FTA satellite is big there.