New stream option
Digital natives offered cheap Binge
WITH forecasts for the streaming service market in Australia to double over the next three years, its newest player Binge is hoping to crash the party – offering more than 10,000 hours of entertainment, from $10 per month.
The affordable platform – which goes live from Monday, May 25 – is a stunning new extension from the Foxtel group, which enjoyed impressive success with its similar sports programming app, Kayo, when it launched almost two years ago.
The new offering will chase a younger audience of digital natives, with a slate of exclusive entertainment titles, as well as a back catalogue of cult classics.
Binge boss Julian Ogrin said programming deals with international studios, including WarnerMedia and HBO, would set the standard high for the kind of content new streamers should expect.
“Binge speaks to the heart of what great entertainment is about … something that is so good, you can’t switch off,” he said.
“Binge will provide permission to indulge in the shows you love and the shows you can’t get enough of,” he said.
Learning lessons after launching Kayo, Ogrin said the Binge customer experience had been informed by two years of research and just under a year of design, testing and production, to curate what digital TV viewers want.
Ogrin said launching in the middle of the COVID crisis could have its rewards.
“In all our planning, it really comes back to the opportunity we see and the research and forecast we see into the [streaming] market which means we have between four and five million users established in Australia today. The existing brands have done all the hard work around educating people in the streaming video on demand experience.
“We expect that market to double in the next three years, so our timing is to piggyback off that established market.”
The ad-free on demand content will cost $10 per month (to access one stream in SD), $14 (2 streams in HD) and $18 (4 streams in HD). Customers can sign-up at www.binge.com.au from Monday, May 25.