Starz Entertainment's Clasen dishes on Netflix pact

FROM MCN: CEO says IP rights are valuable

By Mike Farrell of Multichannel News -- Video Business, 11/20/2009

NOV. 20 | FROM MCN: On the eve of becoming a separate publicly traded company, Starz Entertainment CEO Bob Clasen cleared the air regarding its online agreement with Netflix, adding that he plans to stick with the service despite objections from some cable operators.

Clasen, on a conference call with analysts Thursday, the eve of the debut of Liberty Starz stock (which will include Starz, WildBlue, PicksPal, Fanball, FUN Technologies and about $650 million in cash), said that Starz has been accumulating IP rights for the movies it airs for years without any objections from operators. And its past independent online ventures - including Vongo, which was shuttered in 2008  - barely caused a ripple in the multichannel community.

"Netflix proved the point. Nobody paid attention to our IP products until we did that affiliation agreement ...," Clasen said. "There is no question when we were in the market in 2004 we were early, but a year later people were streaming Desperate Housewives.

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