The deal is crucial for Foixtel’s plans to launch its own drama and entertainment streaming service, Binge, as revealed by the Financial Review in April. Last year, it renegotiated agreements with BBC, NBCU, Discovery and earlier this year Viacom, for expanded streaming rights and fixed cost contracts.
Foxtel has been waiting for the outcome of the WarnerMedia deal before officially announcing the launch of Binge.
“This is an important deal. The important to remember is we’ve had a relationship with Warners for 25 years. This is taking the power and depth of the combined WarnerMedia Group,” Foxtel chief executive Patrick Delany told the Financial Review.
“Like all the other deals we’ve done, we’ve markedly stepped up the ability to use the content for multiple distribution platforms. The reason that drove all of this is our subscribers love the content.”
Mr Delany said three of the top five shows on Foxtel last year were from WarnerMedia; Game of Thrones, Big Little Lies and Chernobyl.
On Tuesday, Nine chief executive Hugh Marks told investors his company will continue to be very aggressive in looking to secure global content deals.
“What we can see when we plan those discussions is that with the revenue base we have across free to air, broadcast video on demand and subscription video on demand, we are able to be very aggressive … because we do have the revenue base to amortise large commitments for large studios and that’s why we’re in a really strong position at the moment,” he said.
“Does that mean relationships might change? Of course they will – they’ll change from time-to-time. The brand value that Stan has and its customer base and its revenue base means that it’s in a strong position to compete … and no one deal will make or break Stan.”
Stan holds a premium content deal with ViacomCBS’s Showtime, which includes shows such as Billions, which runs out in early 2021 and Nine is likely to push hard to resign despite ViacomCBS owning Network Ten in Australia. A number of other contracts will come to market in the near-term including NBCU’s Peacock originals, Disney’s Fox Network and ABC International network content.
