Layer3 TV, a cable startup that uses high-end internet architecture and its own custom built infrastructure to deliver a premium pay-TV product, is now offering 34 HD channels from Starz, the company exclusively told TheWrap.
The cable company’s subscribers can add Starz for $11 a month starting immediately. That add-on includes 34 HD channels from Starz, Starz Encore and Movieplex, plus 5,500 on-demand titles, including originals like “Power” and feature films including “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”
Layer3, founded in 2013 by former cable and internet veterans and currently available in the Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Dallas/Fort Worth, Chicago and Denver markets, already carries other premium channels including the HBO, Showtime and Cinemax networks. CEO Jeff Binder told TheWrap the addition of Lionsgate’s Starz gives Layer3 the full set.
“That’s the last of the premium offerings,” Binder said. “Now we have the complete lineup.”
Binder said the ultra-high quality picture Layer3 delivers has caused its viewers to skew toward premium and sports programming that takes full advantage of the service’s visual capabilities. And with the addition of Starz, Layer3 now has 80 HD premium channels and more than 25,000 films and TV shows in its on-demand library.
“Our HD is the most advanced HD in the market,” Binder said. “Nobody actually has our HD encoding. We smoke the competition when it comes to video quality.”
Layer3 has built out its own 100 percent internet protocol-enabled pipes, and because it uses high-end internet architecture, the service isn’t held up by legacy technology.
“We don’t have channel constraints, we don’t have quality constraints, we don’t run over the public internet,” Binder said. “We’re able to deliver things without buffering and without quality degradation.”
And as Layer3 continues to add channels and markets, Binder said to expect more features added to the platform, which he envisions becoming something like a command center for internet of things-enabled smart homes.
“We’re going to be bringing in an aggressive amount of over-the-top content to our ecosystem and integrate it with the user experience,” he said. “We want to be the go-to place in the living room. Whether you want to go to Golf Digest online or YouTube or grab a movie from our on-demand library or Starz, we want to be that central point of connection.”