Stan, the oddly-named Netflix competitor built in partnership between Fairfax and Nine Entertainment Co, has officially launched. This follows announcements last week by US streaming giant Netflix that they are seeking to evolve into a truly global entertainment service.
Priced at $10 per month, Stan enters an increasingly crowded market as it competes against Foxtel’s Presto, embattled Australian service Quickflix, and the US streaming giant Netflix. Netflix, which is set to officially launch in Australia in March, is believed to already have between 200,000-350,000 Australian subscribers accessing their service.
Last week during an announcement to investors, Netflix announced considerable subscriber growth, emboldening the company to reveal its plans to increase its international roll-out to over 200 countries leveraging off its original series like House of Cards and Orange Is The New Black, as well as through globally licensed TV shows and movies.
At launch, Stan offers just over 750 titles, including exclusive titles Mozart In The Jungle and Golden-Globe winner Transparent. In February, the service will fast track the Breaking Bad spin-off series Better Call Saul. Stan has content deals signed with Sony, BBC Worldwide, ABC, SBS, and Viacom, providing subscribers access to a strong library of Hollywood, Australian, and foreign language titles.
Like Netflix, the Stan library is a mix of movies, documentaries, and TV shows. When Netflix launches in Australia, it is expected that it will offer over a thousand titles.
The volume disparity doesn’t appear to phase Stan’s CEO, Mike Sneesby, who believes that those already using overseas Netflix accounts will find value in Stan. “We invited a group of early adopters from popular Internet forums, who are frequent users of international SVOD services, to join our pre-launch beta trial and their feedback so far has been very positive”.
Netflix is far from the only competition Stan faces, with Foxtel’s Presto offering a film library of over 1,500 films and a TV library of over 100 titles for $14.99 per month. Presto, in launching their TV library in conjunction with Seven on the service earlier this month, does not offer any exclusive television titles. Content is limited to archive Seven Network and Foxtel content, with other archive titles from HBO, ABC, and other third party providers.
Despite its strong library of film titles, Presto has received considerable criticism from users for only offering their content in standard definition. Stan, as with Netflix and Quickflix, provides access to their content in high definition.
The launch of Stan, Presto, and Netflix into the Australian market places considerable pressure on existing streaming video-on-demand service Quickflix. Last September, the Quickflix CEO, Stephen Langsford, wrote an open letter to Netflix demanding that they officially launch in Australia. Langsford believes a visible competitor will benefit his own business.
“Evidence out of the US is that consumers opt for more than one over-the-top service given our low price points and the content and device access tends to vary from service to the other”.
The addition of Stan to the Australian marketplace does mean greater competition for smaller services like Quickflix in offering a similar general entertainment streaming service.
“We don’t see it as a threat,” Langsford states. “It’s great to have another player in the market place helping to educate consumers”.
