Stan held an upfront event for the first half of its 2017 lineup at a media event in Sydney yesterday afternoon. Bringing together journalists, corporate partners, and cast members from their comedy series No Activity for a lunch in Sydney’s QT restaurant, chief executive Mike Sneesby and content head Nick Forward offered insight into the streamer’s performance and upcoming content.
Sneesby promoted the continued growth for the platform, revealing that this month has seen double the number of people signing up than the service experienced at the same time in 2015. This, he explained, highlights the continued growth that the service has experienced. The retention rate for Stan has also improved, with 70% of people sampling Stan for the free 30-day trial staying on as paying customers.
While an exact figure of just how many paying customers the service has was not revealed, Sneesby reported that the service has over 550,000 active subscriptions. This figure includes people actively paying for a Stan subscription, along with customers who received a free subscription through promotions through telcos.
There are currently over 1.3 million active users, indicating multiple logins per paid account. This figure will include multiple viewers in households and a small degree of account sharing among friends.
As Forward took the floor, he highlighted the value of the service’s output deal with US cable channel Showtime. In addition to returning series like Billions, which returns for season 2 on Stan early next year, the deal will deliver to Stan new series including I’m Dying Up Here in April, as well as the Daniel Craig drama Purity and a new Idris Elba series Guerrilla.
No Activity’s Rose Byrne and Damon Herrimen
A promo reel of the upcoming Twin Peaks continuation was shown, featuring the cast discussing the new season of the show. No new footage was revealed of the hush hush production.
Stan will build upon its relationship with No Activity producers Jungle with a new comedy Merchants of Misery, a savage take on the publishing industry and talent managers who feed off personal tragedy. The show is co-created by Jungle’s Trent O’Donnell and AFR Rear Window scribe Bryce Corbett.
Jungle will also produce All Thumbs, created by and starring Damon Herriman.
The Other Guy is a production from Aquarius Films and eOne, created by and starring triple j breakfast host Matt Okine. The show, based on a recent stand-up comedy show, follows a recently single man who is dealing with a possible pregnancy with his ex.
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At the conclusion of the event, the crowd was invited into a screening room to watch the first episode of the second season of Stan Original series No Activity. Joining the cast for the season are ex-pat Hollywood stars Rose Byrne and Damon Herriman, who play a wealthy couple who are being held for ransom by a pair of incompetent kidnappers.