App support is crucial for Aussie streaming service Stan. It already has Android, iOS, Apple TV and Web browser support, but that’s not enough. At an event in Sydney today, CEO Mike Sneesby forecast when you’ll be able to install Stan apps on more of your home entertainment devices.
Sneesby said today that more apps for Stan would be coming by the end of the year. Obviously, the company has to pick its battles in terms of software support — that’s why it launched with Apple TV first and foremost amongst its fleet. That means Stan will have a staged roll out on various home entertainment devices.
The streaming service will land on games consoles — namely the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One — Smart TVs from the likes of LG, Sony and Samsung, and onto the modified Roku 2 box being brought to market by Telstra known as Telstra TV. Stan is being very cagey about naming specific devices — although it displayed them publicly — and similarly isn’t giving concrete month-and-day dates for these launches. Rest assured, though, that they’re on the way.
Stan also has a huge focus on content towards the end of the year. Yesterday it announced a deal with Warner Bros that means every episode of Friends, The OC and The West Wing will land on the service, and today it also pushed a lot of new zombie content. Ash vs Evil Dead, the movie-inspired series starring a much older and grizzlier Bruce Campbell, will stream exclusively on Stan — for the first time anywhere in the world — on 31 October (that’s Halloween!); it’s accompanied by other zombie content in the crime procedural iZombie.
Stan will also continue its push into original, locally developed content with No Activity: an improvised comedy series from the team behind The Moodys including star Patrick Brammall and Love Child‘s Harriet Dyer, with guest spots from the likes of Jake Johnson from New Girl and Australian comedy sensation Tim Minchin.
All up, Stan says it will have 20 exclusive movie premieres, and 11 exclusive, first run shows and 20 studio partners by the end of 2015. That’s on top of what it says is the largest content library of any streaming service in Australia, beating out (the Aussie version of) Netflix for overall hours, movies and shows available for streaming.
What do you want from Stan over the next 12 months? Tell us in the comments!
Disclosure: Stan is a 50/50 joint venture between Nine Entertainment and Fairfax Media. Allure Media, the company which publishes Gizmodo Australia, is also owned by Fairfax.