At an event in Sydney on Tuesday night, the Fairfax and Nine-owned streaming service Stan announced, in just over three years since launching, the business’s active subscriber base has now surpassed one million households and continues to grow.
There was no accompanying announcement from Stan CEO Mike Sneesby about profitability. However, that is expected to be revealed by Fairfax and Nine CEOs Greg Hywood and Hugh Marks when they reveal their full year results in August.
To celebrate the one million customer milestone, Sneesby showed guests the small bell that is rung in the Stan office every time they reach a milestone. He then replaced it with a bigger new bell, which he said was necessary for the size of this milestone.
Stan also revealed a number of new studio output deals and announced three new Australian content commissions.
Stan has signed a long-term exclusive output deal with Hollywood studio Lionsgate, which will make Stan the Home of STARZ, bringing all their future STARZ produced series and hundreds of hours of STARZ and Lionsgate programming to Stan.
The streaming service also announced a multiyear exclusive output deal with MGM. The deal will bring all future MGM drama series and hundreds of hours of MGM TV series and movies, including the Bond franchise, to Stan.
The three new Australian commissions are:
• Stan Original Series Bloom, a six-part mystery drama from Playmaker, in partnership with Sony Pictures Television, who will distribute the premium drama globally. The series will go into production in August and will premiere exclusively on Stan later this year.
• The Gloaming, created by The Kettering Incident’s Victoria Madden, has been commissioned as a Stan Original Series. Produced by Madden and John Molloy (Molly, Boys in the Trees) and in partnership with Disney’s ABC Studios International, who will also distribute the series internationally, production will commence in Tasmania in the second half of 2018. The series will premiere exclusively on Stan in early 2019. Madden told guests that despite working with Foxtel on her previous series, Stan was her first choice of a home for The Gloaming.
• No Activity will return with a stand-alone Christmas special. The brand-new show, No Activity: The Night Before Christmas, will reunite the original award-winning creative team of Patrick Brammall (Glitch, Upper Middle Bogan, A Moody Christmas) and Trent O’Donnell (New Girl, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place, A Moody Christmas), who will also direct, as well as series producer, Jungle Entertainment. Production will commence in the second half of 2018, to premiere on Stan in December. The announcement was made by Brammall and O’Donnell via a pre-recorded video message from Los Angeles.
Mike Sneesby, Stan’s CEO said: “The Australian television landscape continues to change rapidly and with that change, the ambitions and opportunities for Stan continue to grow. We have set out to pioneer the future of television in Australia and today’s subscriber milestone is a great indication of how quickly Aussies are changing their TV viewing habits.
“Premium programming is the key driver of our business growth and strategy and today we have announced some important strategic partnerships that will help us continue to change the face of television in Australia. With these new partnerships with STARZ and MGM it’s clear we’re only just getting started. Bloom and The Gloaming will be our two biggest Original productions yet, each in partnership with major Hollywood studios, and we couldn’t be more excited to make a return to our first Original, with a very special new instalment of No Activity this Christmas. Stan has truly become the Australian home of major networks and Hollywood studios, alongside fresh and groundbreaking local productions.”