Better Call Saul to premiere on Nine / Fairfax streaming video, Stan.
Nine / Fairfax announce their new streaming video service, Stan, has the Breaking Bad prequel.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under Streaming, Top Stories
Nine and Fairfax have confirmed the launch of their new subscription video on demand service, Stan, securing the first-run Australian rights to Breaking Bad prequel, Better Call Saul -airing within hours of the USA.
The media partners announced the new venture in Sydney today with Rebel Wilson as the brand ambassador.
The joint venture will offer “thousands of hours of entertainment, with first-run exclusives, award-winning TV shows, classic catalogue, blockbuster movies and an exciting slate of kids content.” Entering a competitive market of online content, Stan will come with an as-yet-unannounced monthly fee but with unlimited access, no lock-in contract or ads. It an be viewed in full HD on TV, tablet and smart phone.
The service will compete with other SVOD services such as Foxtel’s Presto and Quickflix. At launch, subscribers will also be able to view the complete series of Breaking Bad.
Mike Sneesby, Chief Executive Officer of StreamCo, said, “We are thrilled to reveal the new name in entertainment: Stan. With world-class content including TV shows, movies, and an abundance of kids shows to watch when you want, Stan is a game-changer for entertainment in Australia.
“Starting today we will begin to reveal some of the highly anticipated and first-run content that will be available exclusively on Stan.
“And, hugely exciting for us, we welcome Rebel Wilson as the face of Stan, an Aussie superstar who has made it big in Hollywood. Hilarious and adored by all, Rebel is the perfect fit for everything Stan represents – international star power, hugely entertaining, yet so down-to-earth.”
Rebel Wilson said: “It’s awesome to be back in Australia and I love being here to promote Stan. It’s not named after the Eminem song, I checked. When I was a kid we all used to binge at Sizzler, now all anyone is doing is binge-watching TV. So it’s great that with Stan, Australians will now have a streaming service like the kick-ass ones we already have in the US.”
A launch date for Stan has not been announced.
From co-creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, Better Call Saul is the highly anticipated prequel to Breaking Bad.
The series follows the trials and tribulations of criminal lawyer Saul Goodman and is set six years before he meets Walter White. In the beginning, the man who will become Saul is known as Jimmy McGill, a small-time lawyer searching for his destiny and, more immediately, hustling to make ends meet.
Working alongside, and often against Jimmy, is “fixer” Mike Ehrmantraut. The series will track Jimmy’s transformation into Saul, the man who puts the “criminal” in criminal lawyer. The tone of the series is dramatic, woven through with dark humour.
Starring Bob Odenkirk in the title role, the series is scheduled to launch in February 2015 on AMC in the US, and Stan will make each episode exclusively available within hours of its premiere. A second season of Better Call Saul has already been commissioned.
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- Tagged with Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad
21 Responses
This won’t do that well.
Is STAN suppose to be our equivalent of DAVE in the UK?
Anyway, two questions I have are Bandwidth and Internet speed required.
Surely if they want this to be successful they need to get one (at least) of the big ISPs involved so the Bandwidth used isn’t counted towards your monthly limit.
Its a truly terrible idea, the actor (s) are too old for the roles, prequels never work, watch it die. Sorry and I love “Breaking Bad”. Move on to something new Mr Gilligan, make a movie. !!
Won’t work unless they can stop pirating.
why do you want to be called Loretta, Stan?
Given that all the other networks are doing their own thing, if WIN could get on board with Stan and their Crawfords archive, Stan would start to look good. Southern Star as well.
I see Stan as an Australian supplement to Netflix or Hulu. If it’s just got the same American content as them, then it’s not worth paying more. However, if we can get access to Nine and WIN’s Australian archives then it might be good. I still don’t understand what local content Fairfax brings to the table.
Foxtel’s competition is growing by the day. Streaming services, iTunes and torrent sites are just the start of Foxtel’s woes. They’ll have to do a hell of a lot more than lower the price of its very basic package to compete.
I really doubt that subscription services like this will work in a TV landscape dominated by FTA. We’re not America.
Sadly this service won’t work. If each network does their own thing, you’ll be looking at potentially $30 a month for subs. People already complain about $25 a month for basic Foxtel.
Really wish the networks could work together here and offer one service for all. That way everyone wins.
They really don’t understand or aren’t willing to move quickly. Early next year is too late for a launch. This generation doesn’t like to wait.
Stan sounds promising, but in reality it’s probably just going to be Big Bang Theory and The Block
They called it Stan??? seriously? Does it stand outside my window and yell S T E LL A !
Big lack of information about the service. Not sure about nine’s involvement in all this either especially when nine’s jump in website is not that great. Have read another article which mentions android & ios apps but no mention of windows phone apps. There is no jump in windows phone app so I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t offer that app in this service but it would be poor form if they considered launching a paid service and did not provide apps for all devices.
I can’t help but think the Nine will ruin it, from the onset. I’m still not a fan of using my monthly download limits on watching TV shows and movies.
The new service sounds good. Just would prefer to know an actual launch date. The word soon is so vague. It could very well be next year.
Running by February, but could be earlier.
Looking forward to seeing more of the Fixer. Knowing their fate could add poignancy to the drama.
So will it only be available through the subscription service or will it also be broadcast on Nine? Hope it it doesn’t mean that those of us with a Foxtel subscription will also have to pay for Stan or wait until available on Foxtel.
Looks like Saul is just on Stan so yes it would be on top of your other subs.
Bang!
It’s game on!
I’m with Chuck128.
Unless they recast Mike and use an inch of make up on Saul, the show can hardly be realistically set 7 or so years before the timeline of BB-knowing now how things ended up, it would have been better to see his new life with no expectations as to how it will develop.