Stan

**Stan** (stylised as **Stan.**) is an Australian streaming company which offers original and rebroadcast movies and TV shows by subscription. It was launched on 26 January 2015.

Stan is owned by StreamCo, which was established as a joint venture between Nine Entertainment Co. and Fairfax Media; Nine Entertainment would ultimately acquire Fairfax Media in 2018. In August 2014, each company invested AU$50 million in StreamCo. It competes primarily against the American-based streaming services Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+.

Stan's original comedy *No Activity* became the first SVOD program ever nominated for a Logie Award at the 2016 ceremony.

## Content

Further Information: List of Stan programming

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, Viacom, 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*, *Ja'mie: Private School Girl*, *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, Avatar: The Last Airbender, 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* (the first two seasons aired on the Nine Network). 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 *Tangled: The Series* and *The Lion Guard*. However, Disney has announced that Disney+ will be launched in Australia on November 19, 2019.

On 20 August 2019, The platform recently 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 November 16 2019, all Disney contents were removed from Stan, ahead the launch of Disney+ in Australia.

### **Premiere programming**

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

#### **Original programming**

* *No Activity* (seasons 1–2 & US Adaptation)
* *Plonk* (season 2)
* *Wolf Creek*
* *Romper Stomper*
* *The Other Guy*
* *Bloom*

#### **Acquired programming**

* *11.22.63*
* *A to Z*
* *Acquitted*
* *Angie Tribeca* (seasons 1–2)
* *Ash vs. Evil Dead*
* *Better Call Saul* (seasons 1–4)
* *Billions*
* *Billy and Billie*
* *Blunt Talk* (seasons 1–2)
* *The Bold Type*
* *The Bridge*
* *Community* (season 6)
* *Constantine*
* *Deutschland 83*
* *Dig*
* *Electric Dreams*
* *Episodes* (season five; 2017)
* *Eye Candy*
* *Flesh and Bone*
* *The Following* (season 3)
* *Gallipoli* (episodes 2–7)
* *Heathers* (uncensored version)
* *iZombie* (seasons 1–2)
* *Lost Girl* (seasons 4–5 part two)
* *Masters of Sex* (season 4)
* *Mozart in the Jungle* (seasons 1–2)
* *Power* (seasons 1–2)
* *Preacher*
* *Rise*
* *RuPaul's Drag Race*
* *Selfie*
* *Sherlock: The Abominable Bride Special*
* *Transparent* (seasons 1–2)
* *Twin Peaks* (limited series; 22 May 2017)
* *Underground* (24 January 2017)
* *UnREAL*
* *Will & Grace* (Season 9-present)

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.

## Supported devices

### Hardware supported

The devices on this list are supported by Stan:

* Apple TV (since 13 May 2015)
* Apple iPad Pro 12.9" and 9.7"
* Apple iPad 2 and all later generations
* Apple iPad Air and all later generations
* Apple iPad Mini and all later generations
* Android tablets and phones running Jelly Bean 4.2 or higher
* Google Chromecast
* Sony PlayStation 3 (since 8 October 2015)
* Sony PlayStation 4 (since 8 October 2015)
* Microsoft Xbox One (since 13 January 2016)
* Telstra TV (Since December 2015)

Stan does not support jailbroken iOS devices.

### Software supported

Supported web browsers by platform:

* macOS (OS X): Safari, Google Chrome, WebKit or Firefox
* Windows: Safari, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer (9 and above), Microsoft Edge, Opera or Firefox
* Linux: Google Chrome or Firefox
* Apple iOS 7, 8 and 9
* Apple tvOS
* Android 4.2 or higher
* Xbox One