Canada’s Crave Confirms U.S. & UK Titles & Will Arnett Voice Role In ‘Super Team Canada’ As Streamer Aims To Topple Rivals: “We Know We Can Do More”

deadline.com:

Crave‘s management are eyeing a breakthrough into the top three streaming services in Canada, as its parent Bell unveiled its 2024 season Upfronts slate today.

In an exclusive interview with Deadline, Bell Media VP, Content Development & Programming Justin Stockman outlined a “multi-pronged, multi-year” plan to break into the top three by subscriber numbers, which is currently occupied by Disney+, Prime Video and Netflix.

Crave has around 3.1 million subs at the moment, which has ticked up slowly over the past 24 months, but Stockman and Bell President Sean Cohan are aiming for bigger and better things. “Crave is doing well, but we think it could do better, which was Sean’s statement,” said Stockman. “This is a growing country and there’s lots of opportunity.

We are a country on the rise so how do we tap into that new market as well. We continue to roll out original content, lock in the deals we have, we’re focused on distribution strategies and bundling and all those are happening simultaneously.” Stockman’s statement came in the same week Canada’s CRTC finally introduced new rules dictating global streamers pay 5% of their local revenues to “to support the Canadian broadcasting system.” The system will not impact Crave or CBC Gem, which are affiliated to a broadcaster, and could see the likes of Netflix, Paramount+, Disney+ and Prime Video winding in original content spending — something that production sources tell has been happening while the Online Streaming Act levy terms were formed. “We’ve heard in the marketplace that there has been a lot of pulling back, but we’ve seen with the number of commissions that’s not the case with us,” said Stockman. “We’re finding the right types of deals and originals that are