Foxtel’s Presto will launch its TV counterpart this weekend ahead of rival video-on-demand services scheduled to launch in the coming months.
Presto Television will go live on 18 January priced at $10 per month. The video-on-demand (VOD) service will offer a range of hit shows from both local and international television studios.
Headlining television series include The Sopranos, The Wire, Sex and the City, Entourage, Dexter, Californication, Ray Donovan, Cheers, Frasier, and Everybody Loves Raymond, to name a few.
Foxtel will bundle Presto Television with Presto Movies — under the banner Presto Entertainment — for a cool $15 per month.
Presto will face competition from Netflix which is scheduled to launch on 31 March, and from Stan, a video-on-demand service backed by Nine Entertainment Co and Fairfax Media.
Netflix and Stan will both be offered at $10 per month, although neither VOD service has announced which shows will be stocked in their content libraries.
An obstacle facing all three platforms will be device support. Presto TV does not yet support Android tablets and, due to potential content piracy, it is difficult to support all Android tablets. Foxtel’s Go mobile platform faces the same issue and only supports select Samsung and Nexus Android tablets as a result.
Currently Presto is only available on PCs and Macs; iPads and on Google’s Chromecast.
Foxtel announced its 50-50 Presto TV partnership with Seven West Media in December of 2014. Presto Movies launched in March of 2014 and then had its pricing halved to $9.99 per month in August of 2014.
