"The days of cable TV, as we know it, are numbered."

Or at least, that's what industry insiders said in the mid-80s, when VCRs reached mainstream saturation. Then they said it again with the advent of Pay-Per-View. Then when web videos came along. Then TiVo. Then on-demand streaming. Then Netflix. Then Hulu.


Suffice to say, if we're led to believe every panicked industry-insider, cable TV's already been killed off more times than a Sean Bean character.

And yet here we are, with cable not only thriving, but in the midst of what critics are calling a new golden age. Despite the booming on-demand streaming industry sharpening their knives - broadcast TV will be DEAD by 2030, says Netflix! - hundreds of millions of people are still watching TV through good ol' cable boxes. And for every hip 20-something cutting the cord, a million other baby-boomers are sat at home right now watching commercials for urinary incontinence medication in the middle of a Two And A Half Men re-run.


Still, though, this latest challenge to cable television's supremacy might be the most formidable opponent yet: streaming services owned by the cable company. Cable companies, including our very own monopolistic ratfuckers at Rogers and Bell, are deciding to stop fighting against the incursion of Netflix and to just become Netflix.


For some reason, I'm a Rogers cable customer. This is because I stubbornly refuse to accept things like logic, or reason. I pay around $85 a month for hundreds of channels I never watch. I think I get, like, four channels in Tamil.

I could easily replace all of this with $7.99 a month for Netflix, a few sports leagues' $10-a-month streaming services, and filling in the gaps with the odd [mumbled whispers about something-something-torrent-something-illegal.]




There's hardly anything I watch on cable TV anymore. If you're anything like me, you pay for cable, but you don't really perform any useful functions with it. If I wanted to know the weather, I'd never go to boot up my TV and turn on the Weather Channel. If I looked up and bombs were dropping from the sky, the last place on Earth I'd turn would be CNN. I have a thing in my pocket that can access all of the world's information, for free, without 8-minute ad breaks for deodorant and Subaru sales events.

Why do I still pay a sizable chunk of my life savings on a big screen in my apartment I hardly ever use for its intended purpose? I think, for a lot of us, it's just a product of growing up in the 80s and 90s. Back then, having your own big-screen TV with a million channels was the ultimate status symbol. Remember that Simpsons episode from 1991 where Homer gets cable, and he becomes a Golden fucking God in his neighbourhood? That was the dream, man.


Right now, your TV is probably barely even used except for sports and the odd Chopped marathon on a hungover Sunday afternoon, but if you could go back and tell the 10-year-old version of yourself that you have a gigantic flatscreen TV in your apartment with hundreds of channels, I bet your little eyes would light up with excitement. (Also: while you're talking to your 10-year-old self, it wouldn't hurt to tell them to invest in Google, and to avoid that whole dyed-hair teenage mall-punk phase you had going.)

Anyways: as a Rogers customer, they just rolled out Beta access to their new Netflix-killer (in partnership with Shaw), Shomi!


That means that, at least while my free trial lasts (after that it's $8.99/month, a shade above the $7.99/month for Netflix), I can figure out if it's any good, and whether I should finally come to my senses and cut the rest of my million-channel VIP cable package.

So, how's Shomi? Under each category I'll review Shomi's features, and also, falling in line with everybody's love for the phrase NETFLIX-KILLER, I'll let you know whether Netflix is killed yet.


First Impressions


I'm sure Rogers paid an ad firm a lot of money to come up with the name "Shomi", but it still sounds like a nickname for an elderly Jewish relative.

Also, it will never become cool to say "Hey, if you're not doing anything on Sunday, wanna come over and Shomi something?"


As the final insult, Rogers insists that Shomi be spelled all-lowercase, as shomi - which I am absolutely not going to do.

Is the name "shomi" a Netflix-killer?: No.

The one very good thing about Shomi

Much like Netflix, you can connect to Shomi on your phone or tablet through a wireless network. But the one undeniably huge advantage of Shomi is that you can also navigate to it from your regular Rogers cable, and you can stream right through your cable box.


I can't tell you how many times I've burned through my monthly WiFi bandwidth allotment with Netflix. All it takes is a lazy day off work with the flu, and I'm on my couch all afternoon just chewing through the gigabytes.

"Netflix killer" is generally a dumb buzz-phrase used by headline writers (like me!), but if Shomi can hope to actually chew into Netflix's considerable market share advantage in Canada, the fact that it comes through your existing cable will be an enormous selling point.


Is this a Netflix-killer? Maybe! You can't understate the importance of not burning through $20 in data overage fees just because you got hooked on Scandal.

Shomi's Selection


Granted, there's no accounting for taste. We all like different movies and shows. That being said, after a cursory browse through the TV and movie catalogue, there was a lot to like - but I wasn't blown away.

MOVIES: The movie selection is good, if a bit predictable. Right now the top-watched movies include the sort of crowd-pleasing fare you'd pack if you had to bring some DVDs for a college softball team bus trip.


Superbad, Dumb & Dumber, Home Alone, Mighty Ducks, Love Actually, Animal House... it's not exactly the Sundance indie circuit, but if it's Christmas and you need to throw something on the TV for your family to watch so that Grandpa McHotTakes will stop arguing with your NDP-voting aunt, Shomi's got you covered.

TV: As for TV, there are a good number of exclusive Shomi shows that Netflix Canada doesn't offer. A few classics, some British shows, a lot of kids' shows (if you've got kids, Shomi is a veritable babysitter full of cartoons) and a whole lot of garbage CanCon. Rogers already has the rights to a lot of Canadian programming, and it's dirt cheap to add them to their programming list to pad their selection - still, I wish I had a filter to specify "please don't show me a bunch of cancelled mid-00s CBC period dramas in the TV listings, no one wants them."




Speaking of CanCon: the government wants Netflix to make more of it for some reason, rather than forcing Canadian-owned Shomi to step up their original series game. Maybe the CRTC just recognizes that when Netflix makes an original series it's "House of Cards", and when Rogers makes an original series it's the "Being Frank Show", a shoestring-budget, local cable variety show available on Shomi starring failed juice mogul-turned-failed movie director Frank D'Angelo singing terrible songs and interviewing a bunch of Z-list lackeys.

My one major complaint about Shomi's selection: for both TV and movies, the selection of recent content is piss-poor. I'm not sure if Rogers just didn't manage to negotiate new releases into their deal or if they didn't want to eat into their Pay-Per-View/TMN sales, but good luck finding anything on Shomi made since 2012. This is especially frustrating for TV. Sure, Shomi has Parks & Rec - if you only want to watch the first 4 seasons out of 6.


I'll give a B- to Shomi for their crowd-pleasing movie selection (despite the lack of new releases) and a C for their dated, CanCon-stuffed, original series-lacking TV selection. Even if Shomi can brag about having a few shows Netflix doesn't (the Shomi homepage boasts about having Sons Of Anarchy, for example) they can't touch Netflix's exclusives like House of Cards and Orange Is The New Black.

Is Shomi's Selection a Netflix-killer?: No.


I've decided to do all of this through my cable box. I'm sure Shomi has a sleeker interface if you go through the web or your phone, but then I'm burning through WiFi, eliminating Shomi's only advantage so far.

Netflix has a very browsable interface that makes it fun to cycle through titles looking for something, with all of the big, eye-grabbing TV and movie posters sorted into intuitive categories. Shomi, on the other hand, is making me jump through hoops - first off I have to choose between HD TV Series, HD Movies, TV Series, and Movies.


The selection is different depending on whether you're looking at HD TV vs. Standard TV, or HD Movies vs. Standard Movies. So if you're looking for a title, you have to search all of both the HD and SD categories looking for it.

Rogers, let's talk. Everyone using this service has an HD TV. They haven't even sold non-HD TVs since the goddamn Jean Chrétien administration. You should also be able to detect, in the year 2014, that I have an HD cable box. That means that you can just give me a centralized list of all available shows or movies, and stream in HD where available. Like Netflix does.


Is Netflix Killed Yet?: Hell no. Netflix has the common sense to list all titles together, since people want to look for a title first, not go on a wild goose chase through two sets of listings.

Navigating Shomi


Let's say you want to watch an episode of Louie.

Here's how this would work on Netflix:

1. Select the Louie poster. If it's recently watched, it's right at the top.

2. Select the episode. Enjoy the dry, modern comedy stylings of Louis CK!

Here's how it works on Shomi:

1. Select HD TV Series. Unlike the bright visuals of Netflix, Shomi gives you a bunch of stark, black boxes filled with menus and folders that you have to navigate, like you're looking at MS-DOS prompts.


Hope that your show's offered in HD, if not, repeat all of these steps looking for it under SD.

2. Select Titles A-Z.


3. In that menu, select the group H-M.

4. In that menu, scroll down to Louie.

5. In that menu, select your season.

6. In that menu, select your episode.We're getting warmer!


7. Get to this useless screen, to confirm that, yes, you'd like to watch the episode you selected.

Can I just call attention to the plot summary they wrote for this episode of Louie?


"Season 3 Episode 1: Louie has a challenging day."

Well that really narrows it down, huh? I want to see more episode descriptions written by these people. "NYPD Blue: Season 4 Episode 8. Police officers encounter crime-based situations."


8. Now, look at the clusterfuck that happens after you've enjoyed, or been rendered depressed by, that Louie episode. Every option here is useless.


I can "Resume playing" (but I'm done the episode), "Play from start" (fine, but no thanks), "Cancel" (Cancel what? I haven't done anything) or select from a group of related shows I might also like.

Here's what 90% of people want to do after watching a TV episode: watch the next one. That's why on Netflix, it just auto-loads the next episode for you. Here, not only is there no "Play the next episode of Louie" button, it's selected a motley assortment of completely unrelated episodes from different shows that I might also like. No, Shomi, I don't want to watch the 12th episode of the 2nd season of "Seed" right now - that's now how TV marathoning works.


Is Netflix killed yet? Shit, no.

Overall

Will Shomi kill Netflix? In its current form? No. Netflix has a huge market share advantage, better original series, a better interface - and, it even costs less!


Still, I've learned to never count Rogers out of a money-sucking contest. If on-demand streaming is the future, I'm sure Rogers will find a way to make Shomi popular enough to wring every last shiny gold loonie out of us.