Bell raising CraveTV price to $6 per month for television subscribers

Starting in February, Bell’s streaming content offering, CraveTV, will increase in price to $6 from the current monthly cost of $4.

The company updated its site over the weekend to reflect the change, but did not mention whether the cost would apply to all Canadians when the service expands nationally in January, or whether it will be limited to television subscribers associated with Bell, as it is today.

Bell announced earlier this year that, starting in January, CraveTV would expand to all Canadian internet users, complying with a CRTC decision that would force the company to do so in order to maintain exclusive content deals on its television bundles. Shomi, a Shaw-Rogers owned competitor to CraveTV, expanded nationally this past summer, and is priced at $8.99 for new customers. Netflix recently raised the price of its service to $9.99 for most new customers.

CraveTV had 730,000 subscribers at the time of Bell’s recent earnings call, out of a potential audience of 3.5 million. Expanding nationally to any Canadian with an internet connection should widen that berth considerably, though it remains to be seen whether Bell will have two separate pricing tiers for its television bundlers, many of whom already pay well over $100 per month for their service, and internet-only subscribers.

[via]The Globe & Mail[/via]