When we look at the modern streaming landscape in Canada, one domestic platform stands shoulder-to-shoulder with global juggernauts like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video. That platform is crave.ca/begin. Owned by Bell Media, Crave has become the definitive home for premium television in Canada, boasting exclusive rights to HBO, Max Originals, Showtime, and a growing slate of acclaimed domestic originals.
But Crave was not always the heavyweight it is today. Its origins reveal a fascinating story of corporate defense, regulatory maneuvering, and a gradual realization that to survive the streaming wars, traditional broadcasters had to cannibalize their own legacy business models.
The Pre-Launch Landscape: The Netflix Threat
To understand the birth of Crave, one must look at the state of Canadian media in the early 2010s. Netflix had expanded into Canada in the fall of 2010—its first international market. At the time, Canadian telecom and media giants (Bell, Rogers, and Shaw) viewed the service as a mild novelty rather than an existential threat. They controlled the pipes (internet infrastructure) and the programming (exclusive domestic rights to major US network shows).
However, by 2014, the “novelty” had become a phenomenon. Cord-cutting—the practice of canceling traditional cable subscriptions in favor of internet-based video-on-demand (VOD)—was accelerating. Canadian broadcasters realized they needed an immediate defense strategy. They could not simply license their content to Netflix; doing so would only strengthen their biggest competitor. They needed their own platforms.
This urgency led to a unique arms race in Canadian telecom. In November 2014, Rogers and Shaw partnered to launch Shomi. Just one month later, Bell Media fired back with its own proprietary streaming service: CraveTV.
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Phase 1: The “Walled Garden” Strategy (2014–2015)
CraveTV officially launched on December 11, 2014. At its inception, the platform was vastly different from the direct-to-consumer app available today. Bell Media engineered CraveTV as a “walled garden”—a value-add service designed specifically to protect its traditional cable television revenue.
To subscribe to CraveTV, you could not simply download an app and enter a credit card. You had to already be a subscriber to a participating traditional television provider (like Bell Fibe, Telus, or Eastlink). If you were a cord-cutter who only paid for internet, CraveTV was entirely off-limits to you.
The strategy was clear: make the streaming service so cheap and appealing that it would convince Canadians to keep their expensive cable packages. Priced at just $4.00 CAD per month, the initial offering was a steal. Bell leveraged its massive war chest to secure exclusive Canadian streaming rights to the entire off-air HBO back catalog (including The Sopranos and The Wire), Showtime properties, and heavily syndicated sitcoms like Seinfeld and The Big Bang Theory.
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However, there was a major caveat. CraveTV only offered past seasons of premium shows. If you wanted to watch the current season of Game of Thrones, you still had to pay a premium for Bell’s linear pay-TV channel, The Movie Network (TMN).
Phase 2: Tearing Down the Walls (2016)
The walled garden strategy faced immediate public and regulatory backlash. Consumers who had already cut the cord were frustrated that they were locked out of a domestic streaming platform, and consumer advocacy groups petitioned the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), arguing that Bell and Rogers were engaging in anti-competitive behavior by tying streaming services to cable subscriptions.
In response to shifting market winds and regulatory pressure, Bell Media pivoted. On January 1, 2016, CraveTV became available direct-to-consumer (DTC). Anyone with an internet connection in Canada could now subscribe for $7.99 per month, bypassing traditional cable entirely.
This move proved vital. Later that same year, Rogers and Shaw abruptly shut down their competing service, Shomi, citing an inability to achieve profitability in a market dominated by Netflix. CraveTV suddenly stood alone as the sole Canadian-owned streaming survivor.
Content is King: The Birth of Original Programming
With Shomi out of the way, Bell Media doubled down on content. Licensing foreign shows was expensive, and global studios were increasingly looking to launch their own streaming apps. CraveTV needed exclusive domestic content that couldn’t be reclaimed by US studios.
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Enter Letterkenny.
Originally a series of viral YouTube shorts titled “Letterkenny Problems,” Bell Media commissioned it as CraveTV’s first original series. Premiering in February 2016, the deadpan comedy about rural Ontario life became a massive, unprecedented hit. Letterkenny proved that CraveTV could be more than just a repository for old American television; it could be an incubator for Canadian cultural phenomena. The show drove record subscriber acquisitions and set the stage for future Crave Originals like Canada’s Drag Race and Shoresy.
The 2018 Transformation: From “CraveTV” to “Crave”
Despite its growth, CraveTV still had a structural problem: it was disconnected from Bell’s most valuable television asset, The Movie Network (TMN). TMN was Canada’s equivalent to HBO, broadcasting current, day-and-date premieres of premium cable shows.
In November 2018, Bell executed the most significant evolution in the platform’s history. They dissolved the TMN brand entirely and merged its premium current-season content directly into the streaming app. Along with this merger, they dropped the “TV” from the name, rebranding simply as Crave.
This relaunch introduced a tiered pricing model. The base tier offered the traditional catalog and originals. The premium tier—”Crave + Movies + HBO”—cost roughly $20 per month but finally allowed Canadian cord-cutters to stream new episodes of flagship shows like Game of Thrones and Succession at the exact moment they aired on television.
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By unifying its legacy premium cable business with its digital streaming architecture, Bell finally completed its transition. Crave was no longer a defensive add-on meant to save cable; it was the primary product.
A Lasting Legacy in the Streaming Wars
Today, Crave operates in an incredibly fractured market. The streaming landscape has fragmented into dozens of specialized apps, and global studios are fiercely guarding their intellectual property. Yet, Crave has maintained its position through strategic alliances—most notably its expanded long-term deal with Warner Bros. Discovery to house Max Originals—and a growing commitment to bilingual (English and French) domestic content.
The origins of Crave represent a masterclass in corporate adaptation. What began as a cautious, restricted experiment designed to protect an aging business model was eventually allowed to grow, adapt, and ultimately replace the very model it was built to defend. In doing so, it established a permanent Canadian footprint in a digital arena dominated by global giants.
