By Keach Hagey
Starz, the premium cable network known for shows like
"Spartacus" and "Outlander," said it will make its first foray into
an international market on Thursday with the launch of a
subscription streaming video service in the Middle East.
Dubbed Starz Play Arabia, the new service will cost $13.99 a
month and be available in 17 countries throughout the region from
Morocco to Iraq, with a special marketing focus on oil-rich Gulf
countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Starz has a minority stake in the Starz Play international
venture, along with an unnamed American investor and the Swedish
media group Parsifal Entertainment. Parsifal also has teamed up
with HBO to launch a stand-alone streaming service in the Nordic
region.
The move means Starz has beaten online streaming rivals like
Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. to the region, which traditionally
has been dominated by hundreds of free-to-air satellite channels.
It also gives Starz, a newcomer to international expansion, a
faster way of catching up to rivals like HBO, which has channels in
some 60 countries and licenses its content to linear channels in
the Middle East.
Launching TV channels overseas "is a very expensive and lengthy
process, " Starz Cheif Executive Chris Albrecht, the former CEO of
HBO, said in an interview. "[Subscription video on demand] is a
product that appeals to what we think is the generation of consumer
that exists and that's growing there, and the technology allows us
to do it much more quickly."
U.S. media companies are targeting international markets for
subscriber growth as the domestic pay television market matures,
even though profit margins are generally slimmer overseas.
In the U.S., the Starz streaming service is available only to
people who subscribe to the Starz pay-TV channel. Mr. Albrecht said
the company has no plans to follow HBO in launching a stand-alone
streaming service in the U.S., but is considering expanding in
Asia, Africa and Latin America.
In addition to Starz's own programming, the Starz Play service
in the Middle East will include library content from several
Hollywood studios and locally produced content.
As part of the launch, Starz said Maaz Sheikh, the former chief
sales and operations officer of pay-TV company Orbit Showtime
Network, would become the president and chief operating officer of
Starz Play Arabia.
"We are at the very beginning stages of this, but we have
resources and we are not afraid to partner," Mr. Albrecht said.
"There are entrepreneurs and other companies in other regions that
are interested in having a stake in this business."
Write to Keach Hagey at keach.hagey@wsj.com
Access Investor Kit for Amazon.com, Inc.
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US0231351067
Access Investor Kit for Netflix, Inc.
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US64110L1061
Access Investor Kit for Time Warner, Inc.
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US8873173038
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires