The Canadian television landscape in the early 2010s was largely dominated by a few major telecommunications conglomerates. For decades, companies like Bell Media, Rogers Communications, and Shaw Communications had comfortable, entrenched positions. They controlled both the infrastructure that delivered content to homes and the exclusive domestic broadcast rights to the most popular American television shows. However, a seismic shift occurred in the fall of 2010 when a then-unassuming American company called Netflix crossed the border, marking its first international expansion.
Initially, Canadian broadcasters viewed Netflix with mild curiosity rather than immediate alarm. They were confident that their stronghold over live television, premium sports, and localized programming would insulate them from any serious threat. But as internet speeds increased and the phenomenon of “cord-cutting”—consumers abandoning traditional cable packages for on-demand internet video—accelerated, the novelty of Netflix transformed into an existential crisis for the old guard.
By 2014, it was clear that Canadian media giants could no longer ignore the streaming revolution; they had to participate in it. This realization set the stage for an unprecedented digital arms race in Canada, culminating in the birth of a platform that would eventually redefine how Canadians consume premium television: visit crave.ca/begin.
The Threat Next Door and “Project Latte”
As the streaming market expanded, Canadian broadcasters realized that simply licensing their exclusive content to Netflix was a self-defeating strategy. Every hit show they licensed to the American streamer only gave viewers more reasons to cancel their traditional cable subscriptions. The major players needed their own proprietary digital platforms to keep consumers within their ecosystems.
In August 2014, competitors Rogers and Shaw announced a joint venture called Shomi, a streaming service designed to compete directly with Netflix. Bell Media, Canada’s largest multimedia company, was not far behind. Operating under the internal codename “Project Latte,” Bell was quietly developing its own streaming platform focused entirely on premium television series.
The codename was a nod to the service’s planned introductory price point: just $4.00 CAD per month, roughly the cost of a premium coffee. On October 30, 2014, Bell Media officially lifted the veil on Project Latte, announcing that it would launch under the name CraveTV. To generate buzz, Bell even hosted a Guinness World Record attempt outside its Toronto headquarters, where superfans attempted to watch CraveTV for 91 consecutive hours.
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When CraveTV officially launched on December 11, 2014, it hit the market with an impressive arsenal. Leveraging Bell Media’s massive purchasing power, the platform secured the exclusive Canadian streaming rights to the entire off-air library of HBO (including iconic series like The Sopranos and The Wire), Showtime hits, and beloved syndicated comedies such as Seinfeld and The Big Bang Theory. However, there was a significant catch that frustrated many early adopters.
The Walled Garden Strategy
In its original incarnation, CraveTV was not a true competitor to Netflix; it was a defensive mechanism designed to protect Bell’s legacy cable business. Bell engineered CraveTV as a “walled garden.” To subscribe to the new streaming service, a consumer could not simply visit a website and enter a credit card number. Instead, they had to already be a paying subscriber to a participating traditional television provider, such as Bell Fibe, Bell Satellite, Eastlink, or Telus.
The strategy was transparent: Bell wanted to make CraveTV so affordable and rich in content that it would act as a powerful incentive for Canadians to maintain their expensive traditional cable packages. For the growing demographic of cord-cutters who only paid for home internet, CraveTV was completely inaccessible.
This restrictive distribution model immediately faced severe backlash. Consumer advocacy groups argued that tying a digital streaming service to a legacy television subscription was anti-competitive, and they quickly petitioned the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to intervene. The public pressure, combined with shifting regulatory attitudes that favored open internet access, forced Bell Media to rethink its entire approach to the streaming market.
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Project Latte Revealed
October 2014
Bell Media announces its new television-focused streaming service, initially using a codename referencing its planned $4 monthly price.
CraveTV Launches
December 2014
The service officially goes live, but restricts access solely to existing subscribers of participating traditional cable and satellite television providers.
Direct-to-Consumer Pivot
January 2016
Responding to regulatory pressure and market demands, CraveTV launches over-the-top, allowing any Canadian with an internet connection to subscribe.
The Rebranding
November 2018
CraveTV merges with the linear pay-TV channel The Movie Network (TMN). It rebrands simply as “Crave” and begins offering day-and-date premieres of new HBO and Showtime series.
Tearing Down the Walls
The realization that the walled garden was unsustainable led to a massive pivot. On January 14, 2016, Bell Media officially uncoupled CraveTV from traditional cable subscriptions. The platform was relaunched as a direct-to-consumer, over-the-top (OTT) service available to any Canadian with an internet connection for $7.99 per month.
This move effectively marked CraveTV’s true entry into the streaming revolution. It was no longer a value-add for cable; it was a standalone product forced to compete on its own merits. The timing of this pivot proved to be critical.
The Canadian streaming market was simply not large enough to support three major competitors (Netflix, CraveTV, and Shomi) simultaneously. While CraveTV was expanding its reach and investing in early original programming like the breakout rural comedy Letterkenny, its primary domestic rival was struggling. In late 2016, Rogers and Shaw abruptly announced the shutdown of Shomi, citing an inability to achieve profitability in a landscape increasingly dominated by global tech giants.
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With Shomi removed from the board, CraveTV was left as the sole Canadian-owned streaming platform capable of competing at scale.
The Ultimate Evolution: Merging Past and Present
Despite its growth and a library packed with legendary television, CraveTV still had a major structural limitation throughout its early years. It was essentially an archive. While it hosted every classic HBO series, it did not offer current episodes of massive contemporary hits like Game of Thrones. To watch those, Canadians still had to pay a premium for Bell’s linear pay-TV channel, The Movie Network (TMN).
This artificial separation between legacy broadcasting and digital streaming finally ended in November 2018. In a massive corporate reorganization, Bell Media completely dissolved the TMN brand and merged its premium, current-season content directly into the streaming platform.
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Accompanying this merger was a significant rebrand: the “TV” was dropped, and the service became known simply as Crave. The platform introduced a new tiered pricing model. A premium subscription allowed Canadian cord-cutters to finally stream new episodes of flagship HBO and Showtime series at the exact moment they aired on live television, completely bypassing the need for a cable box.
A Canadian Streaming Phenomenon
Today, Crave stands as a testament to the necessity of corporate adaptation. What began as a highly restricted, defensive experiment designed to protect an aging business model was eventually allowed to adapt, evolve, and ultimately replace the very model it was built to defend.
The platform has continued to innovate to meet modern consumer demands. It has vastly expanded its library to include major feature films, launched a bilingual French-language tier (incorporating content from Super Écran), secured a massive long-term deal to house Max Originals from Warner Bros. Discovery, and in 2023, introduced ad-supported tiers to provide more accessible price points.
By aggressively pivoting from a walled garden to a comprehensive, direct-to-consumer powerhouse, Crave didn’t just survive the arrival of the global streaming revolution—it successfully built a permanent, premium Canadian footprint within it.
