--Trial is Part of "TV Everywhere" Initiative, Announced by Comcast and Time Warner Last Month
Comcast, the US's largest cable MSO, and premium programmer, Starz Entertainment (operates 16 premium movie channels, including its flagship Starz and Encore brands), announced last week that Starz will make a selection of its content available online to its subscribers who are also Comcast customers, under the auspices of the MSO's recently announced trial of a service called On Demand Online. On Demand Online was announced last month as part of an agreement between Comcast and Time Warner to develop "broad principles" for the so-called "TV Everywhere" distribution model (note: the "TV Everywhere" model, which has long been championed by Time Warner and its chairman and CEO, Jeff Bewkes, seeks to make programming that pay-TV customers have already paid for through their cable, satellite or IPTV subscriptions available to those customers on multiple platforms, and thus aims to head off the threat posed to pay-TV services by the increasing availability of over-the-top programming--for more background, see the articles published on itvt.com, April 30th, May 14th and June 25th).
According to Comcast and Starz, 300 Starz titles will initially be offered in standard definition as part of the On Demand Online trial (note: last month, it was announced that the trial will also make available content from Time Warner's TNT and TBS channels; in addition, a number of other programmers--including Rainbow Media's AMC, Sundance Channel, IFC and WE TV channels; Scripps Networks; and A&E Television Networks--recently confirmed to Multichannel News's Todd Spangler that they plan to participate in the trial); the companies say that additional titles, including HD content will be added in the coming months. Starz titles slated for availability on On Demand Online include recent releases, such as "Hancock," "Vantage Point," No Country for Old Men," " and "Enchanted"; as well as Starz original series, such as "Crash," "Head Case" and "Party Down." The companies say that many of the Starz titles will be available online as soon as they premiere on the standard Comcast VOD service and before they air on Starz' linear channels. "At Starz our goal is to allow subscribers to watch our programming whenever and wherever they want," Starz Entertainment president and COO, Bill Myers, said in a prepared statement. "We are delighted to join with Comcast in this trial of Comcast On Demand Online. Comcast, with its existing base of millions of Starz subscribers, robust plant and strong commitment to on-demand will be a terrific partner to help explore the new world of Internet video distribution."
According to Comcast and Starz, Starz' titles will be made available "in the coming weeks" through Comcast's Comcast.net and Fancast.com broadband video sites to the approximately 5,000 customers from across the US who are participating in the On Demand Online trial. The trial is designed primarily to test Comcast's new "authentication" technology, which is intended to restrict online access to pay-TV content to customers who have already paid for that content. The MSO says that On Demand Online will use a simple log-on system for streaming content and that, in the future, the service will allow customers to download content to go. The service is slated to be rolled out in phases, adding new features, functionality and content over time.
