Binge-watch to your heart’s content for $10 a month

There’s a new entrant in the crowded entertainment streaming market, created by the same team who produced sports streamer Kayo.

Julian Ogrin CEO of Binge and Kayoat Fox Sports studios in Artarmon, Sydney. Picture: Britta Campion

Get ready to Binge. There’s a new entrant in the crowded entertainment streaming market — the Foxtel-owned Binge, created by the same team who produced the popular sports streamer Kayo.

Binge will go live on Monday morning and is offering “10,000 hours” of the best entertainment from Australia and around the world, including an exclusive catalogue of HBO content, meaning the likes of Game of Thrones, Succession and The Sopranos can be downloaded for a starting price of $10 a month.

The new streaming service has been 24 months in the making and marks another big bet for Foxtel (majority-owned by News Corp, publisher of The Weekend Australian) as it moves from a pay-TV service to a streaming company focusing on subscription video on demand (SVOD).

Foxtel recently re-signed a crucial content deal with WarnerMedia meaning all of its valued HBO content can be shown exclusively on Foxtel and Binge, with new shows including Succession, WestWorld and Big Little Lies.

The WarnerMedia deal also includes Seinfeld and the most popular (and expensive) sitcom of all time, Friends — which will be available on Binge later this year.

Binge will also show drama, comedy, movies and documentaries from other production houses including NBCU, FX, BBC and Sony, which includes shows like The Americans and The Office.

Binge CEO Julian Ogrin told The Weekend Australian that despite entering a competitive market he was confident of the success of the platform due to the quality and exclusivity of its content.

“It starts with our content. We have a collection of the world’s leading studio brands and catalogues all coming in together. And that just gives us the depth and breadth of all the categories from premium drama, comedy, drama through to some of the greatest movie blockbusters aggregated together. But in addition to that is the strength of our documentaries, reality and lifestyle collection that goes in, in one place.”

Binge will be available on iOS and Android phones, tablets and televisions, and will also soon be available on Samsung televisions.

Users can sign up to Binge.com.au from Monday for a free two-week trial. It will enter the market at $10 a month for standard definition going up to $14 a month for a HD package with two devices, and an $18 HD package with four devices.

The price point is the same as Stan, owned by Nine Entertainment, which has been the long-time second in the Australian market behind the global powerhouse of Netflix.

Stan also recently lost out to Foxtel for the WarnerMedia contract and could soon face losing its valuable Showtime content deal that expires next year, and Binge will be hoping to pounce on its rival’s market vulnerability

But Binge’s new rivals also extend to Disney+ which made a successful launch last year and faces further competition from big-tech streamers in the form of Amazon Prime and Apple TV+. There’s also talk that ViacomCBS, which owns the Ten Network, may relaunch a new standalone streamer in Australia.

Mr Ogrin claims the proliferation of entertainment streaming services in Australia is a sign of a sophisticated market that will enable Binge’s quality to stand out rather than overwhelm viewers.

“Right now there are over four million entertainment streamers (subscribers) in Australia. In three years that’s forecast to double, up to 85 per cent penetration.”