Starz Inks Sony Movie Deal

Starz Entertainment added a key new content funnel for its TV, on-demand and video-download channels, inking a deal with Sony Pictures Television to provide more than 500 top movie titles from the movie studio’s library.

The deal allows Starz to offer that content across its 16 linear TV channels, its subscription-video-on-demand service and its Vongo video-download service.

The distribution deal for the linear TV and on-demand services -- which were already covered under an existing exclusive deal for Sony movie content -- will start in 2008 and continue through 2014.

Vongo, meanwhile, will start distributing the Sony content starting next month, with releases such as The Da Vinci Code and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby offered to download customers in the pay-per-view release window.

"This agreement expands and strengthens the pipeline of great films coming to Vongo subscribers for many years," Starz executive vice president of advanced services Bob Greene said in a prepared statement. "Furthermore, we are pleased to add greater depth to the PPV lineup for those subscribers and nonsubscribers who wish to rent individual films."