Dubai: America’s web-based film and TV content provider Starz has skipped a continent — Europe — to launch direct services in the Middle East for its first overseas venture. The Starz Play digital platform — launched in the UAE Wednesday — comes on a monthly subscription fee of Dh50 ($13.99) and can be accessed via any online platform, mobile or otherwise. (First, they will need to download the app.) “The UAE and other regional markets have the highest digital and mobile broadband penetration levels and that’s well documented,” said Maaz Shaikh, President of Starz Play Arabia. “This is a marketplace where the shift in consumer behaviour in terms of how entertainment is accessed is still vastly untapped. There are a few localised [web-streaming] providers, but Starz comes in with an entire content and distribution network at its disposal.”
“Europe is too fragmented a market for web-streaming and scaling up would have taken longer in such an environment.”
In setting its regional pricing, Starz has hewed close to what US subscribers pay, which is $7.99 to $15 (Dh29 to Dh55) a month, for which they can access all of Starz’s owned content as well those provided by a roster of 12 studios, which includes Disney, CBS, Warner Bros, Sony and Showtime. The pricing could put place a great deal of stress on how existing cable/pay-TV and web-stream services are charged.
The streaming content will not feature advertising. Starz’ own content includes TV series such as The White Queen, the Roman blood-and-gore saga Spartacus, and Magic City. Web streaming has been able to strike a resonant chord with the young and trendy, who prefer to consume content on the go or platforms other than a TV. The industry is also seeing a sharp spike in its fortunes with Netflix and Amazon writing the script and the likes of Apple looming in the near horizon.
Tick all boxes
The official confirmed that regional subscribers will only need to pay on a month-on-month basis and not locked into a 12-month subscription. This will be key to building up the user base in the region and take in those subscribers who are currently signed up with cable/pay TV providers.
But Shaikh confirmed that Starz is looking to tick all boxes … talks are on with regional telcos who also operate cable TV services. By signing up with them, the Starz content also gets to have another platform to build up the business, especially for its exclusive content.
“Going forward, around 70 per cent of the revenues should come from the web-streaming part of the business and the rest from cable platforms,” said Shaikh. “The target is to attain the break even point over a two-year operational period.”
He declined to say the investments made or the number of subscribers needed to turn break even.
Starz Play Arabia has the parent company as “lead investor”, a private investor from the US and Parsifal Entertainment Group of Sweden, which provides the technology platform.
