The battle for Australia’s Home of HBO – and why too many streaming services could squeeze out Foxtel and Stan | Dan Barrett & More Trending News
This week executives from Warner Bros Discovery are in Australia to fulfill with key executives from Nine and Foxtel to debate licensing HBO content material, in keeping with a report within the Nine newspapers. The outcomes of these conferences could have severe implications for the long run of Foxtel and Stan as we all know them.
Australia isn’t quick on subscription streaming choices. There are market leaders corresponding to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Foxtel/Binge/Kayo and Stan, together with smaller gamers like AMC+, Paramount+, Hayu, Shudder and BritBox. It’s already too many for a comparatively small market to maintain.
As every of these new services launched in Australia, content material provide choices turned extra restrictive for locally-operated streamers. We could reside in an period of peak TV, but when Stan and Foxtel can’t purchase titles that drive subscribers, they’re going to be squeezed out of the market.
Licensing HBO titles is the one final huge content material deal that may be made, giving our native streamers a lifeline.
For Foxtel, which has had exclusivity over HBO programming for near a decade, HBO has been a core pillar of its content material technique in Australia on each old-school Foxtel and its streamer Binge. As the “Home of HBO”, and by extension, the Australian house of Game of Thrones, Mare of Easttown, Succession, The White Lotus, and a big quantity of different buzzy must-see titles, the HBO content material has been a significant drawcard for upscale Aussie viewers searching for premium drama collection.
And then you will have Nine Entertainment Co, proprietor of Stan. While Stan was simply forward of Netflix to launch within the native market, in recent times it has been shedding traction, falling again to fifth place behind worldwide streaming giants. After shedding its two greatest content material partnerships with Paramount Global/Showtime and NBCUniversal, it’s now left to take advantage of out of glitzy, however low-profile, exhibits from companions like Starz.
The almost definitely situation although is that Warner Bros Discovery opts to maintain the HBO content material for itself and launch its personal branded streaming service in Australia.
Today, HBO Max has over 94 million subscribers throughout the US, Canada, Latin America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific. The firm has introduced a 130 million subscriber goal by 2025. It is unlikely that the worldwide enlargement of the service, wanted to scale up in opposition to the likes of Netflix and Disney+, goes to halt simply because Foxtel or Stan make a good-looking provide.
While it’s true that there was a rethink at Warner Bros Discovery about how it’s valuing its content material and the place it’s promoting it, that applies extra to the older library of content material on provide.
There’s no indication that Warner Bros Discovery is skittish in regards to the continued roll-out of HBO Max.
Warner Bros Discovery’s chief govt, David Zaslav, instructed the Hollywood Reporter earlier this month: “Our whole library went on HBO Max, and we weren’t selling any of it, but it was all on there. Now, all that could have worked, but we looked at it and we said, ‘Most of this is not being watched,’ or, ‘We don’t think anybody is subscribing because of this. We can sell it non-exclusively to somebody else. Look at this huge library that we have.’”
The solely change in technique marked by Zaslav and his crew to the roll out of HBO Max is that they’re planning to rebrand the streaming service, launching it on a newly rebuilt platform – one that might be prepared at roughly the identical time that they’d be trying to finish the present licensing deal in Australia.
Without a HBO deal, Foxtel will proceed on, however will seemingly reshape its product to replicate much less of an emphasis on imported premium drama.
In September the Foxtel chief, Patrick Delaney, addressed a convention in Singapore the place he instructed the viewers: “I think the future of our aggregation is that slowly the market moves towards the aggregation of Kayo and Binge under a new aggregated brand name,” he stated. “The more streaming services there are, the more strain there’ll be on wallets.”
It is that pressure that’s the huge concern for a streamer like Stan which is trying down the barrel at elevated overseas competitors and a library the place fascinating new content material is slowing to a trickle. (Stan’s chief govt, Martin Kugeler, was approached for remark for this text.)
In 2021, Stan had a 13% market share and accounted for 18% of all of the minutes streamed by services in Australia. As that content material provide of scorching new titles dries up for Stan, you’ll be able to see that only one 12 months later Stan has dropped again to an 11% market share, with simply 8% of all of the minutes streamed down below.
The 2022 Deloitte Entertainment Survey discovered that Australian households have, on common, 3.2 subscription services. With Amazon Prime Video bundled in with low-cost house supply by its dad or mum retail firm, Netflix nonetheless seen as a must-keep service by many, and Star Wars/Marvel/youngsters’s content material seen as a significant lure for Disney+ subscribers, it’s changing into tougher for another streaming service to develop into one of the three.2 must-haves.
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Dan Barrett writes the day by day Always Be Watching publication. He will be discovered speaking about TV on ABC Radio, the Binge podcast Skip Intro, 4BC, SBS and extra
The battle for Australia’s Home of HBO – and why too many streaming services could squeeze out Foxtel and Stan | Dan Barrett
The battle for Australia’s Home of HBO – and why too many streaming services could squeeze out Foxtel and Stan | Dan Barrett
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The battle for Australia’s Home of HBO – and why too many streaming services could squeeze out Foxtel and Stan | Dan Barrett