New Crave subscription service includes all of HBO and "live" for $20 per month

[PBA]

Crave Press Release: 

I bring this up here because this new Crave service is, to me, what Pik ought to be. The New crave $20 per month ($100 annual) has:

• HBO's current lineup of series, movies, documentaries and specials such as GAME OF THRONES, WESTWORLD, SHARP OBJECTS, LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER, REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER, CAMPING, THE DEUCE, THE SHOP, the upcoming miniseries MY BRILLIANT FRIEND, and all-new seasons of TRUE DETECTIVE and VEEP.
• Hollywood Movie channels
• Download content to iOS devices (and presumably Android too) for watching on those long flights
• Live "On-Air" which seems to be the former TMN Pay TV linear channels now rebranded as Crave 1, Crave 2, Crave 3, Crave 4, HBO Canada 1, and HBO Canada 2.
• Ad free
• iOS, Android, Apple TV apps.

My Pik subscription + HBO ($30 per month) gives me:

• Live TV, but no cloud DVR, pause, skip / Fast Forward over ads.
• HBO + basic crave (for now at least, will be interesting to see what happens to the Crave option now)
• VoD, but only while connected.
• No content download to watch offline
• iOS, Android, Apple TV apps
• Sketchy Android TV box (I've moved on to Pik App on Apple TV)

The big Pik differentiator is live TV. But for the last 3.5 years I've been a cord cutter, and really, live TV is lame compared to the new generation of Over the Top services like Netflix, Crave, and even the CBC App ($5 per month gives me live CBC and no ads.)

While I am really pleased with the Apple TV app, it really has come very late to the party. If I had that 12 months ago maybe I'd be a more sticky customer. However, now with the new Crave I can get the features of Pik I like, with added content download to devices, and for 33% cheaper (More if I opt to pay for Crave yearly.)

So, Telus: What now for Pik?

[NFtoBC]

Different strokes for different folks. The Crave offering is not appealing for us. The PikTV App is a better fit for our viewing, and only $10 per month.

[atheoncrutch]

I'm pretty happy with PikTV's offerings at $10/month. There's a few improvements I would like to see (3rd party app sign in, more channel options, pvr etc) but overall its a great way to get the basics. I'm super stoked for the new Crave service though! FINALLY us Canadians can subscribe to HBO as a standalone product. I had been considering signing up for Crave+HBO+TMN through Pik, but without the ability to sign into Crave it was less appealing. If Pik offers the new re-launched service for the same price with the ability to sign into the standalone Crave app, I'll probably go that route.