Comcast & Starz Announce Largest Video-on-Demand Deal

Comcast and Starz Entertainment Group have announced a partnership that enables Comcast customers to have access to up to 1,500 movies per year from the Starz library.

The agreement also covers the launch of two new SEG premium movie channels on Comcast systems and provides for the extension of the affiliation agreement between the two companies into the next decade.

Comcast plans to offer digital cable customers who subscribe to Starz 325 top movie titles per month, and offer Encore customers 250 of these movie titles per month - all at no additional charge. Digital cable customers who would have paid $3-4 per movie to receive top movies now will each be able to receive up to $1,000 per month worth of value at no additional charge from Comcast.

Comcast will also make available for no additional charge 100 of the 250 Encore movies as part of a new digital cable package that will be the gateway to video-on-demand for those customers who have previously experienced traditional television content.

The deal is being positioned as a way to transition Comcast customers to Video-on-Demand. I'm a Comcast customer, and while it sounds interesting, the only problem is that they are promising only 1,500 movies per year, while Netflix has a growing collection of more than 45,000.

What do you think of this deal?

Thanks to Aron for sending this in.

Comments

[TheMatt]

Well, I like this deal because I'm a Comcast subscriber with Starz and Encore. :) That said, I can't seem to see *when* this will happen? This is cable-land, so I'm guessing next May?

Hmmm...does Starz even have any movies worth watching? I haven't had any paid cable movie channels in years. Last I saw starz/encore or whatever, they mostly played old movies that got too much tv time already.

I think I'll stick with DVDs for now unless they can offer new releases like BBO/NF can.

[Hunter McDaniel]

The only advantage of VOD over Netflix is instant gratification. The disadvantages are high cost and much more limited selections.

This really doesn't have much appeal for me. For the cost of Starz I could add two more discs to my Netflix plan and be much better off.

[jen]

aron,
how much money did you loose trading netflix stock?

My situation may be atypical because my cable co. charges only $6/mo for the Starz channels, with Starz On Demand included. Currently, Starz On Demand has several dozen movies at any given time. Some of the recently-available ones, such as Returner, Infernal Affairs, Barbarian Invasions and the 2003 Zatoichi, are movies that I would ordinarily expect to be available only from a service such as Netflix. I hope my cable co. can do a deal similar to Comcast and increase the On Demand selection. That would be great.