Earlier this week, Comcast opened up access to Starz’s three TV Everywhere apps (Starz Play, Encore Play, and MoviePlex Play) without so much as a peep, according to a report by Multichannel News. So far in 2014, Comcast and a handful of other service providers – including Google Fiber, CenturyLink, and Mediacom Communications – have launched authentication for Starz Play, allowing subscribers to watch any content available on Starz’s networks virtually anywhere they want.
Leading up to 2014, the list of multichannel video programming distributors offering the Starz Play app included AT&T U-verse, Astound, Atlantic Broadband, Bright House Networks, Cablevision Systems, Cox Communications, Suddenlink Communications, Time Warner Cable, Verizon FiOS, and Wave Broadband.
Dish Network appears to be one of the few remaining major providers that have not yet extended Starz TV Everywhere app access to its customers, instead offering the premium network’s content through its own TV Everywhere platform, much like Comcast prior to this week’s authentication.
Starz CEO Chris Albrecht said in his company’s first quarter earnings call earlier this month that the Starz Play app was available to more than 85 percent of Starz’s user base of 21.9 million subscribers. Albrecht further explained that the Encore Play and MoviePlex Play apps were “not far behind.” The premium cable/satellite network launched Encore Play and MoviePlex Play apps for Xbox 360 a couple months back and is collaborating further with Microsoft to release apps for the Xbox One by the year’s end.
Starz has previously released apps for PC, Mac, iOS devices and various Android-based smartphones and tablets such as the Kindle Fire and Fire HD, Nook HD and HD+, and Google’s Nexus 4, Nexus 7, and Nexus 10.
