Netflix declined to comment Monday on the new, multi-year extension
Netflix declined to comment Monday on the new, multi-year extension that Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) and Starz said they signed for content. The deal gives Starz exclusive pay TV rights to SPE’s theatrical releases through 2021, they said in a…
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news release (http://xrl.us/bogbmf). The previous deal between SPE and Starz covered movies released theatrically through 2016. Starting with 2005 theatrical releases, Starz has been the exclusive first-run pay TV home for the exhibition of SPE films. The new deal provides movie content for all Starz platforms including its Starz and Encore TV channels in standard definition and HD, subscription SD video on demand services, HD On Demand and 3D On Demand, and online streaming services, they said. Terms weren’t disclosed. Starz also “remains the exclusive home” of Disney theatrical releases and their accompanying digital streaming rights “into 2017,” it said. Netflix declined to say if it sought a content deal with Sony. Netflix scored a victory in December, when it signed a multi-year distribution deal with Disney that will start with Disney’s 2016 theatrical releases, at least some of which won’t be available for streaming until 2017. In the past, Netflix had access to Disney content via a pact that Netflix had with Starz. Nearly a year ago, Netflix played down the significance of losing some content for streaming after the four-year contract it had with Starz came to an end. Netflix stopped making several movies available to its streaming subscribers once that deal ended. But Netflix told us then that Starz new release movies it had “accounted for only about 2 percent of Netflix viewing.” They included 15 Disney titles offered under a pay TV release window, “many of which,” including Toy Story 2, would “leave Starz in the coming weeks and months anyway,” he said. Amazon scored its own victory on Monday, saying it signed an exclusive content licensing deal with CBS for the new TV series Under the Dome. The coming program, based on Stephen King’s book of the same name and scheduled to premiere on CBS TV June 24, is the “first in-season, scripted series from a major broadcast network, to be offered exclusively” on Amazon’s Prime Instant Video service, it said. Amazon Prime members will have unlimited streaming of all the series’ episodes four days after their initial broadcast on CBS, at no additional cost, and will be able to watch the show on devices including the Kindle Fire HD, iOS devices, Roku, and the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii U game consoles, Amazon said. Amazon and CBS said in July 2011 that they signed a non-exclusive licensing deal that would allow Amazon customers to stream CBS TV shows.