Bell becomes Canada's largest TV provider

Bell becomes Canada’s largest TV provider, announces more Fibe TV innovation

MONTRÉAL — Bell today announced that fast-growing popularity of Fibe TV has made Bell TV the largest provider of television services in Canada for the first time, with more than 2.7 million TV customers across the country.

“Bell has transformed into a broadband communications growth company in recent years, and becoming Canada’s favourite TV provider is proof of our ongoing progress. The best TV service available, Fibe TV is next generation technology that enables the innovative new features that are bringing more and more consumers to Bell TV,” said George Cope, President and CEO of BCE Inc. and Bell Canada. “As Bell celebrates our 135th year of providing the world’s best communications to Canadians, the new broadband networks we’re building today are sparking innovation, transforming our company and ensuring Canada’s leadership in advanced communications.”

Coupled with Bell’s longstanding leadership in communications research & development, the broadband Fibe and Atlantic Canada FibreOP networks are delivering both cool TV features to consumers that are unavailable from any other provider, and all-new ways of watching TV across multiple platforms with both Bell TV and Bell Media.

Even more Fibe TV innovation

In its most recent Customer Interaction Metric study released in October, Nielsen Consumer Insights found that Bell’s Fibe TV and FibreOP TV in Atlantic Canada were the top 2 TV services most recommended by customers in Canada1.

Product innovation has been the key to Fibe TV’s popularity, and Bell recently announced the exclusive new Restart feature on Fibe TV, which for the first time enabled Canadian TV viewers to start live TV shows already in progress from the beginning. Now, Restart has been enhanced to let viewers go back in time to watch and Restart shows that aired in the previous 30 hours.

Also new is Resume, which lets you change channels while replaying a show, change back to the original channel, and pick up where you left off, and Suggestions, which offers customized viewing recommendations for video on demand.

Trending is a unique new Fibe TV service that will immediately list the 5 most-watched shows in Canada in both English and French at any given time. Viewers can easily switch to them to watch live or Restart from the beginning.

“Canadian television is a competitive and fast-changing sector and Bell is embracing the challenge and the opportunity with the best viewing options across every platform and a dedication to being first with the new TV features that consumers want,” said Rizwan Jamal, President of Bell Residential and Small Business. “We’re dedicated to delivering Canada’s best TV experience with unmatched flexibility and convenience for consumers.”

TV innovation in the home and on the go

The Fibe TV app launched earlier this year revolutionized the viewing experience by bringing the full power of Fibe TV to mobile devices. Available at no extra charge to Fibe TV customers, the Fibe TV app provides the most robust mobile TV experience available anywhere – 300+ live channels at home, more than 170 live channels on the go, and over 13,000 hours of on-demand programming anytime, anywhere.

To enhance the moveable TV experience in the home, the Fibe TV app is also pre-loaded on the new Samsung Galaxy View, a highly portable 18.4″ (46.7 cm) Full HD touchscreen that is WiFi enabled for video streaming and web browsing, offering consumers the opportunity to turn every room in the house into a TV room. The Samsung View is available in Canada exclusively from Bell starting November 19.

Innovations from Bell Media

With more than 50 viewing apps now available, Bell Media is at the forefront of delivering premium live and on-demand content to users through set top boxes, online, on mobile devices and emerging platforms.

The company’s innovative GO video streaming services, including TMN GO, TSN GO, Super Écran GO and the recently announced Discovery GO, bring content to platforms such as iOS, Android, Apple TV, Samsung Smart TVs, Windows 8, and Blackberry 10. Earlier this year, CTV GO became the first Canadian TV Everywhere service to support Google Chromecast while Discovery GO service will include 4K content.

Bell Media has also announced that the CraveTV on-demand video streaming service will be available direct to all Canadian consumers with Internet access in January 2016.

Ongoing leadership in Canadian communications R&D

In its annual ranking of Canadian Research & Development released this week, Research Infosource Inc. confirmed Bell as the R&D leader among communications providers, investing $546 million to develop new broadband products and services in Canada in 2014 alone.