BCE Inc. said Thursday its CraveTV streaming service recently hit one million subscribers. The Montreal-based company said it reached the milestone by the end of September, nearly two years after it launched CraveTV in December 2024.
At the time, the streaming service was only available to subscribers of certain TV providers. This January, Bell Media expanded availability to all Canadians with an Internet connection. Bell Media hasn’t provided total subscriber numbers since August 2024, when it said the service had roughly 730,000 customers.
In a conference call Thursday with investors, BCE president and CEO George Cope suggested that the demise of Shomi, a video-on-demand service Rogers and Shaw launched in November 2024, can boost CraveTV’s performance. Shomi, which recently said it was nearing a customer base of 900,000, will pull the plug on Nov. 30.
Still, CraveTV has a long way to go to match the reach of Netflix. Solutions Research Group, a Toronto consumer research firm, says the U.S.-based streaming company has about five million Canadian households subscribing.
BCE also announced Thursday that CraveTV would be available on Apple TV.
BCE said CraveTV’s performance helped drive its media division revenue up 3.5 per cent in the third quarter ending Sept. 30. Bell Media revenues grew to $716 million from $692 million, also thanks to subscriber growth from The Movie Network, which Bell made nationally available earlier this year and TV Everywhere.
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