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Presto TV, the joint venture between pay-TV service Foxtel and Seven West Entertainment, has now been formalised following approval of the arrangement by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
The Presto TV streaming video-on-demand service is the TV-only version of Presto. Its companion is Presto Movies, and viewers can subscribe to either service for AU$9.99 or both for AU$14.99.
For subscribers, the news doesn’t change how they currently use the service — it’s very much business as usual for Presto. Internally, the company will form a new management team. Shaun James, Director of Presto and On Demand at Foxtel, will act as Interim Chief Executive Officer of the joint venture.
Now that the joint venture is fully operational, Presto says that it can expand upon its content library, saying that it will “dramatically increase” its offering over the coming weeks.
This will include increasing the number of “First on Presto” exclusives, beginning with the Australian first-run rights to “Aquarius,” starring “The X-Files” alum David Duchovny on May 29.
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Content is, unsurprisingly, proving to be the main battleground for the Australian streaming services. While the US-based Netflix has its own original content, Presto’s local rival Stan has focused on Australian exclusives and premieres such as “Transparent” and season six of “Community,” although the service recently announced its own original show.
According to Presto, Presto TV now features 4,443 TV episodes across 254 different shows. Presto Movies has 879 titles. All up, Presto says it offers over 5,000 hours of content.
Both Stan and Netflix were contacted for similar statistics. A Netflix spokesperson said that the company did not offer a “quantifiable breakdown of content on the service” because of the constant growth of the library. A Stan spokesperson said that the service had added a significant level of content over the weekend, upping the total library of TV and movies to around 7,000 hours.
Updated 1.51 p.m. AEST: Added comment from Stan.
