Stan to lose Showtime shows at the end of the year

Nine Entertainment’s streaming service Stan is set to lose the majority of its Showtime television shows at the end of the year.

Stan CEO Mike Sneesby at their headquarters in Sydney. Picture: Hollie Adams

Streaming service Stan is poised to lose the bulk of its key Showtime television programs at the end of the year, significantly weakening the appeal of the Nine Entertainment-owned group as competition for subscribers heats up.

Stan’s current Showtime deal expires in December, and The Australian understands that Showtime’s owner, US media giant ViacomCBS, plans to put its new programs and its extensive back-catalogue on to its own streaming service.

As a result, Stan is likely to lose about 500 hours of library content, including shows such as Californication, Happyish, Nurse Jackie and Dexter. It also won’t get any new Showtime programs.

However, Stan’s current Showtime deal means it will continue to get new episodes of existing shows on its platform, such as Billions, for the entire run of the show. A Stan spokesman declined to comment.

During the coronavirus crisis, Australians have consumed a mountain of content across all entertainment platforms. As early as mid-March, both Foxtel — which is majority-owned by News Corp Australia — and Stan were seeing a surge in customers binge-watching TV shows, movies and sport. Such a sharp spike in viewer numbers has intensified the battle for new subscribers.

Stan’s boss Mike Sneesby will be under pressure to secure fresh content, particularly after Foxtel’s chief Patrick Delany recently snagged a major content deal with US giant WarnerMedia.

The loss of such a significant amount of Showtime’s content will be a setback for Stan. Australians have a wide range of streaming services to choose from, including Netflix, Foxtel, Binge, Hayu, Disney+, Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video.

 

Consumers can also watch shows and movies on free broadcast video-on-demand platforms run by the nation’s three commercial TV broadcasters, Seven, Nine and Ten, plus public broadcasters ABC and SBS. Most BVOD services have ads sprinkled through the shows.

ViacomCBS bosses have taken more interest in their Australian operations since last December’s merger between Viacom and CBS.

CBS took ownership of Ten in November 2017, and just over a year later launched a subscriber streaming service called 10 All Access in Australia. But it has largely been overshadowed by US streaming giant Netflix.

Mr Sneesby’s boss, Nine chief executive Hugh Marks, has repeatedly said the TV and publishing group will increasingly turn itself into a subscription revenue model through Stan to reduce its reliance on advertising revenue.

With ad spending down more than 40 per cent across the media industry in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, Nine has cut its newspaper operations by suspending a string of newspaper sections and magazines, including Domain and BOSS. It has also forced staff to take leave and suspended bonuses.

Foxtel’s deal with WarnerMedia last month will give the pay-TV and streaming operator access to a vast array of TV shows from Warner Bros, HBO, HBO Max.

They include hit shows such as Game of Thrones, Succession and Big Little Lies, plus comedy classics like Friends and The Big Bang Theory. It also means Foxtel will maintain Australian rights to Warner Bros and HBO content, rather than HBO Max going it alone through the US network’s own streaming service.