'Bunny' Movie Parodies Click With Starz Viewers

'Bunny' Movie Parodies Click With Starz Viewers

More Than 1.6 Million Hits Since the 30-Second Shorts Began Airing in April

Horror Genre, Led by Freddy vs. Jason, Prove Most Popular

ENGLEWOOD, Colo., Sept. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Animated, 30-second versions of major motion pictures have proven a huge hit with viewers of Starz On Demand, generating more than 1.6 million viewings since the movies began airing April 1, Starz Entertainment Group LLC (SEG) announced today.

The 30-second re-enactments, created by animator Jennifer Shiman, feature animated bunnies in half-minute versions of such well known films as "Jaws" and "The War of the Worlds." Horror films was the most popular genre by far, led by "Freddy vs. Jason" viewed 316,000 times in five months, "Pulp Fiction" with 261,000 and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" with 227,000.

"The popularity of the bunny shorts on Starz On Demand is one of the clearest early indicators that on demand is a very different medium than linear channels," said SEG Vice President of On Demand Bill Hoagland. "With on demand, it is possible to air programming of any length instead of trying to shoehorn everything into half hour or hour slots, and allows the viewer to sample programming that might be unavailable or overlooked on the linear channels."

Hoagland added, "If we had been forced to present these wonderful shorts in our interstitial spaces between movies, it may have been years before they found the audience they have reached on demand in just a few months. On demand is proving to be a great platform to test new concepts, and then roll the most popular content out to our linear channels."

Hoagland noted hundreds of thousands of these bunny shorts have also been viewed as part of the two-minute file packages that now air before and after mainstream Starz On Demand movies. The bunny shorts were a perfect fit for Starz On Demand because they enhance the movie experience and "surprise and delight" the on demand user with something special and unique that they did not specifically order, and requires little time to watch. "When they accidentally see a bunny short, they go looking for more in our 'Quickies' section. In May, 2005, four of the bunny spots collectively were viewed more than any individual movie title, attesting to their popularity," added Hoagland.

"As we continue to develop our on-demand platform, we will be offering our viewers more and more experiences that go far beyond what they are used to seeing from Starz on their television sets."

Other bunny shorts include "Scream," "Titanic," "Jaws," "The Shining," "The Exorcist," "Alien," "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "It's a Wonderful Life" as well as the behind-the-scenes bunnumentary "Making A Bunny."

Starz Entertainment Group LLC (SEG) is the largest provider of premium movie services in the United States with approximately 179 million pay units. SEG offerings include the Starz Encore Movie Pack with 13 digital movie channels and more than 750 movies per month, Starz HDTV, Starz On Demand, and Starz Ticket, an on-demand premium Internet movie subscription service available on the broadband platform. Starz Entertainment Group is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation, www.starz.com.

Contact: Allyson Taylor Starz Entertainment Group (720) 852-1122 allyson.taylor@starz.com

Source: Starz Entertainment Group LLC

CONTACT: Allyson Taylor of Starz Entertainment Group, +1-720-852-1122, allyson.taylor@starz.com

Web Site: http://www.starz.com/

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