Advertising messages | Club illico and Tou.tv Extra will not imitate Netflix

Club illico and ICI Tou.tv Extra do not plan to offer less expensive packages with advertising. Not yet, in any case.

Marc-Andre Lemieux
The Press

While we recently learned that Netflix was thinking of integrating advertising messages to reduce the price of its monthly subscription, Quebec platforms seem determined to keep their initial business model.

In an interview, the senior director, content and programming, of ICI Tou.tv, Christiane Asselin, indicates that she does not intend to offer a more economical version of the Extra, which displays the same price since its launched in 2014, or $6.99 per month.

ICI Tou.tv does indeed have a free component relaying mainly Radio-Canada broadcasts in catch-up, in exchange for advertising messages. For its part, the Extra component contains hundreds of additional titles and offers premiere series (That’s how I love you, The Blue House, Without an appointment) long before they landed on ICI Télé.

As for Club illico, we continue to “prefer a model without advertising” for $15 per month. A preferential monthly rate of $10 is reserved for Videotron customers. In a message sent by e-mail, the VP, strategy and international affairs, of Quebecor Content, Yann Paquet, underlines that this is an approach “appreciated” by all subscribers.

Unknown if Crave prepares an economical monthly plan using ads. A Bell Media spokeswoman declined our interview request, indicating that the company had “nothing to add/say on the subject”.

Stability

If Club illico and ICI Tou.tv Extra do not build an option with advertising, it is in particular because they have not suffered, unlike Netflix, a serious drop in subscribers. In its most recent report, published in April, the American giant indicated that it had lost 200,000 customers, while it planned to attract 2.5 million new ones, reports Agence France-Presse.

Additionally, Netflix expects to see its subscriber count drop by 2 million in the current quarter.

Everything indicates that the arrival of Disney + in 2019 hit him a lot, while in Quebec, local platforms seem to have escaped unscathed. According to a NETendances study by the ATN of Laval University entitled Digital portrait of Quebec households and published in January, Internet subscribers to Club illico (16%) and ICI Tou.tv Extra (9%) have remained stable over the past two years. For its part, Crave posted 8%, down slightly from 2020, when it reached 9% of Quebec users.

“Knock on wood, we are still growing. Looks like we haven’t hit a plateau yet. The platform is fine. Perhaps because, given that we are in Quebec, our offer is really different. Perhaps because we offer Quebec content…”, notes Ms.^me Asselin.

Up to $6 less

In the United States, most video-on-demand platforms already offer budget packages with advertising. Generally speaking, these plans cost US$5 to US$6 less per month.

Since June 2021, HBO Max customers (The Flight Attendant, And Just Like That…) who have not developed an allergy to commercial interruptions can pay US$9.99 per month instead of the usual US$14.99. At Hulu (The Handmaid’s Tale, How I Met Your Father), it’s US$6.99 versus US$12.99. For Peacock (Bel Air, Saved by the Bell), we’re talking about US$4.99 versus US$9.99, just like Paramount+ (The Good Fight, Star Trek: Discovery).

Note that Disney has also announced its intention to launch a plan with Disney+ advertising by the end of the year.

Inevitable

We should not be surprised to see Netflix follow suit and eye the advertising market, says Catalina Briceño, professor at the School of Media at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). The popular platform, host of series like House of Cards and Stranger Things, has long benefited from the fact that it was alone (or almost) in exploiting this sector. But this is no longer the case.

In addition to the logic of a market that is reaching a certain maturity, the economic context now comes into play.

According to M.^me Briceño, audiovisual streaming companies will have to revisit their business model over the next few years. And especially Netflix. “Unlike its competitors, Netflix is ​​not part of a consortium or large integrated group that helps it ‘subsidize’ its losses through other activities. We only have to think of Disney+, which can count on Disney and its income from TV channels, amusement parks, cruises, etc. »