Netflix Announces Watch Instantly Options Headed To the Canada

Canada is about to get some major love from Netflix.

In what has been a move long in the coming, the company has announced (via Home Media Magazine) that they will be releasing film and television programming on their streaming portion of the brand for those subscribers within the greater Canada area.

This is a great expansion for the brand, as they have said that roughly 50% of their subscribers, totaling around 14 million people, watch at least 15 minutes of streamed media a month. With the expansion to things like the Wii, PS3, XBOX 360, and various Blu-ray players or set top boxes, this number will undoubtedly rise over time.

While I don’t live in Canada, I know that this is really great news for our readers who do live there, and I really couldn’t be more excited for you all. Watch Instant is a massively worthwhile expense, and in my humble opinion, worth the roughly $10 subscription fee alone. It looks like others are coming to this belief as well, as they will be announcing that they have added 700,000 more subscribers in June alone.

The initial launch of the service will be in English, and as a subscription (or so we think at this time), and will follow with a French rollout sometime next year.

Source: Home Media Magazine

Check out all of the Criterion Collection films available on Netflix here.

From the Press Release:

Netflix To Launch Canadian Service for Streaming Movies and TV Episodes Later This Year

Expansion Beyond U.S. Marks First International Venture for Internet’s Leading Movie Subscription Service

LOS GATOS, Calif., July 19 /PRNewswire/ — Netflix, Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX), the leading Internet movie subscription service, today announced it will expand into Canada this fall offering unlimited movies and TV episodes streamed instantly to TVs and computers for one low monthly fee.  The Canadian launch will mark the first availability of Netflix outside the United States.

Canadian Netflix members will be able to instantly watch a broad array of movies and TV episodes right on their TVs via a range of consumer electronics devices capable of streaming from Netflix, as well as watching on PCs and Macs.

In addition to representing its inaugural international market, Canada will also mark the first streaming-only service promoted by Netflix.

At the time of launch, the Netflix Canadian service will be available in English only, but the company said it expects to add French language capability over time.

Canadians interested in Netflix can go to www.netflix.ca and sign up to receive an email from the company when the service launches in Canada this fall.