Stan (company)


Stan Entertainment Pty Ltd is an Australian streaming company that offers subscription-based video on demand content. It was launched on 26 January 2015. Stan competes primarily against Foxtel's VOD services Foxtel Now and BINGE, Network 10's 10 All Access as well as American-based streaming services Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+.
Stan Entertainment was founded as StreamCo Media, a joint venture between Nine Entertainment Co. and Fairfax Media. In August 2014, each company invested A$50 million in StreamCo. StreamCo was renamed Stan Entertainment in December 2014, prior to the January 2015 launch of the streaming service. Nine Entertainment would ultimately acquire Fairfax Media in 2018, making Stan a wholly owned subsidiary of Nine Digital.
Stan's original comedy No Activity became the first SVOD program ever nominated for a Logie Award at the 2016 ceremony.

Content

At launch, the first major programming announcement was the exclusive rights to the premiere season of Better Call Saul as well as the rights to Breaking Bad, which previously aired on Foxtel. It also held the rights to Transparent and Mozart in the Jungle.
The company has a content partnership deal with Sony Pictures, ABC, SBS and its World Movies subsidiary, ViacomCBS, MGM, BBC Worldwide, Showtime, CBS, Village Roadshow, and Warner Bros. International Television Distribution.
On 15 December 2014, Stan signed a non-exclusive agreement with ABC Commercial, which will include hundreds of hours from the mostly Australian ABC Television back catalogue including popular series Summer Heights High, ', Upper Middle Bogan, It's a Date, The Moodys, Angelina Ballerina, Bob the Builder, Thomas and Friends, The Wiggles, Redfern Now, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Jack Irish and Janet King.
On 17 December 2014, Stan signed another non-exclusive agreement with Viacom Global Networks, giving it streaming rights to MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon television shows such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, iCarly, VICTORiOUS,, Legend of Korra, Teen Mom, My Super Sweet Sixteen, Geordie Shore, South Park, Tosh.0 and Reno 911!.
In August 2015, Stan signed a multi-year deal with Warner Bros. International Television Distribution, bringing several new U.S. series to the platform, including Australian premiere series A to Z and Selfie, as well as the third season of The Following. In 2016 it signed an exclusive licensing agreement with CBS, providing Stan with the exclusive licence to Showtime series such as Ray Donovan, Dexter and Billions, as well as CBS series including Madam Secretary, Elementary and Under The Dome.
Stan is also commissioning its joint owner, the Nine Network, to produce original Australian drama series exclusive to the service and has approached ABC and SBS on the possibility of co-producing shows and films. On 16 February 2015, Stan announced it was developing two original series—a Wolf Creek series and a political drama based on the life of High Court judge Lionel Murphy titled Enemies of the State, with additional productions to be announced in the coming months. On 10 March 2015, it was announced Stan had acquired Plonk, a comedic wine program which had formerly aired on Eleven, premiering season two on 18 June 2015. On 1 May 2015, Stan announced its first commissioned series, a comedy titled No Activity; which premiered on 22 October 2015. Stan renewed No Activity on 15 December 2015 for a second season.
On 13 December 2018, Stan signed a deal with The Walt Disney Company to stream content from Disney on the service. Movie titles include Frozen and The Lion King, as well as Pixar films such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. The deal also included Star Wars films and Marvel titles such as The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy. Content for children was sourced from Disney Channel and Disney Junior, including television series ' and The Lion Guard. However, Disney has announced that Disney+ will be launched in Australia on 19 November 2019.
On 20 August 2019, The platform inked a deal with Paramount Pictures to give it extra content in the struggle for market share with Netflix. That deal would give Stan exclusive rights to some of Paramount's best-known films, including Mission: Impossible, Transformers, Star Trek and Top Gun. However, a merger between Paramount Pictures’ parent company Viacom and network giant CBS, which now owns Network Ten, has cast doubt on the value of the Stan-Paramount partnership. On 16 November 2019, all Disney contents were removed from Stan, ahead the launch of Disney+ in Australia.

Premiere programming

The following is a list of programmes which have had their Australian premiere on Stan.

Original programming

Stan has also released Season 1 reboot of Will and Grace, which was released alongside all 9 seasons of other sitcom, Seinfeld.

Marketing and subscription numbers

At launch, Australian actress Rebel Wilson promoted the service.
Parent company Fairfax Media claimed they were approaching 100,000 customers by March 2015, however, many of these customers were on a 30-day trial period. In May 2015, Fairfax announced the service was nearing 200,000 subscribers and had a target of 300,000 to 400,000 by the year's end.
In May 2015, Roy Morgan Research found that Netflix had 1.039 million Australian users, compared to 97,000 for former competitor Presto and 91,000 for Stan. In October 2015, Nine Entertainment claimed that Stan had between 150,000 and 200,000 paying subscribers, which they said was ahead of Presto's estimated 100,000 customers.
One year after its launch, CEO Mike Sneesby announced that 1.5 million users had used the service across almost 700,000 subscriptions. In December 2016 Stan claimed to have 600,000 active subscribers. In November 2017 it was reported that the service had over 800,000 active subscribers and revenue topping $100 million a year.
Stan reached 1 million active subscribers in June 2018. By December 2019, the service had over 1.8 million subscribers.

Supported devices

Hardware supported

The devices on this list are supported by Stan:
Stan does not support jailbroken iOS devices.

Software supported

Supported web browsers by platform: