Videotron is having a great year so far and was one of the main reasons that their parent company, Quebecor Media, Inc., had such a good second quarter this year. With a 6.2-percent increase to over 700,000 subscribers, Videotron is positioning itself for even more growth this upcoming year. The Quebec-based wireless company is preparing itself to announce a new unlimited music program, although details are sketchy. The press release simply states, “Media Advisory – Videotron launches Unlimited Music, a first in Canadian mobility.” Videotron is inviting the media to a press release this Thursday at 10:30am where it will announce this “Canadian first in mobile services.” Manon Brouillette, President and CEO of Videotron and Myrianne Collin, Senior Vice President, Strategy & Marketing will be there to discuss the details. This will all take place at Phi Centre, 407 Saint-Pierre Street, Montr©al, Canada.
Exactly how Videotron chooses to offer a streaming music service will not be revealed until Thursday, but that will not keep us from speculating. They could possibly do it under their illico Videotron Entertainment division that handles their illico.tv. We could also assume it would be similar to the Apple Music, Spotify and Google Play Music, which each already has a dedicated Canadian English and Canadian Francophone stations. Keep in mind these are only assumptions on our part and it will be interesting to see how Videotron will handle the different language and streaming packages.
Before Public Mobile was sold to Telus, it launched an unlimited music service called Siren in 2012. Public bundled the music streaming service in with its top plans that also included unlimited talk, text and data. The service did not last long, but in 2015 music services is a completely new ball game. More and more younger people are subscribing to the likes of Google Music Play, Spotify, Pandora and other streaming services – it is a great way to enjoy a variety of music without having to purchase each individual song. Many people are running and walking on a daily basis and enjoy listening to uninterrupted music in the process…just going to and from work on the bus or in a carpool you can see the number of people with a headset dangling from their ears. We will let you know the particulars when we hear from Videotron.