All about Technology: Stan scores big with Showtime deal, lands Twin Peaks reboot

Thursday 28 January 2016

Stan scores big with Showtime deal, lands Twin Peaks reboot

Stan has been on a roll with its content deal announcements as of late, but the streaming service’s latest announcement is arguably its biggest one yet – Stan has entered a long-term partnership with CBS which will make the service the official licensee of Showtime in Australia.

Under the deal, Stan will receive the exclusive streaming rights to hundreds of hours of existing Showtime content, as well as all future Showtime series.

“Every new show that Showtime creates over the duration of this partnership will come exclusively to Stan for the life of the series,” said Stan CEO Mike Sneesby at today’s media briefing on the announcement.

In terms of existing Showtime series on other platforms, namely Presto, Sneesby explained that the content deals for those shows will remain unchanged for now, but will eventually become exclusive to Stan.

“Some of those shows have existing licenses, where they’ll see non-exclusive licenses on the Stan platform, and over the duration of this deal those licenses will convert into exclusive licenses,” said Sneesby.

Stan is ready for Showtime

The deal kicked off earlier this week with the premiere of the new show Billions, which will be fast-tracked direct from the U.S. for the remainder of the series, and will eventually include the 2017’s much anticipated reboot of David Lynch’s landmark television series, Twin Peaks.

On top of this news, Sneesby spoke of several CBS shows nearing the end of their run on free-to-air networks will be taking on a second life as SVOD exclusives on Stan.

“There’s are a number of very important shows that are better known for free-to-air broadcast, like Madam Secretary and Under the Dome, which as they exit their free-to-air licensing window, will come as SVOD-exclusive onto the Stan platform.”

This Showtime deal goes a long way to solidifying Stan’s place opposite its rival Netflix, which Sneesby says provides a “homogeneous offering across a global platform,” while Stan is “a completely locally-focused proposition.”