A pay-1 window is the first period in which a film can be watched as part of a paid subscription, after its cinema run and its rental and purchase phase. During that period one service, historically a premium cable channel such as HBO or Starz and now usually a streamer such as Netflix, Peacock or HBO Max, holds exclusive rights to show the film to its subscribers in a given territory. The window exists because studios earn more by selling a film in sequence than all at once. Each audience pays a different price at a different moment, and the subscription buyer pays a premium for being the first service to offer a title without a per-film charge.

The term is short for "first pay television window". Later subscription periods are numbered accordingly: pay-2 is the second, and some contracts run to pay-3.

Where pay-1 sits in the release sequence

Film distribution runs on windowing, the practice of releasing a title through a series of channels in a fixed order. PPC Land's explainer on broadcast windows sets out the usual order: cinema exclusivity, then premium video on demand (PVOD), then standard transactional video on demand (TVOD), then pay-1, then wider subscription video on demand (SVOD) and free-to-air television, and finally ad-funded libraries such as free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels.

Timing has shortened sharply. Writing in April 2021, the analyst known as The Entertainment Strategy Guy put the traditional gap between a cinema debut and pay-1 at about nine months, adding that it had often fallen to 90 days. Current deals vary by studio. FilmTake reported in June 2024 that each Universal title's pay-1 window starts 120 days after theatrical release. GamesRadar reported in July 2026 that the Sony and Netflix agreement sets a minimum of 120 days between cinema and streaming. NBCUniversal said in December 2021, however, that most of its 2022 slate would reach Peacock 45 days after theatrical premiere, so the published figures for the same studio do not agree, and individual titles move with box office performance.

How a pay-1 deal is structured

Most pay-1 rights are sold through an output deal, in which a service agrees in advance to license every eligible film a studio releases over several years, rather than buying titles one at a time. The contract normally names:

  • the territory, which until recently was almost always a single country or region;
  • the start trigger, usually a set number of days after theatrical release or after the home entertainment date;
  • the term, the length of the exclusive period for each film;
  • the fee formula, often tied to box office results, with floors and caps;
  • holdbacks, which stop the studio licensing the film to rival subscription services during the window;
  • withdrawal clauses, which force the pay-1 licensee to remove the title when a later licensee's window opens.

The length of the term is a matter of contract, not industry rule. FilmTake reported that most pay-1 output agreements have traditionally given each film an availability window of 15 to 18 months. The Entertainment Strategy Guy described Netflix as paying "to rent films for 9-12 months at a time."

Prices are rarely disclosed. When Netflix won Sony's US pay-1 rights in April 2021, Deadline reported, according to Deseret News, that the offer was worth around $1 billion over four years. The Entertainment Strategy Guy put it at more than $250 million a year.

A pay-1 period does not have to belong to one buyer. Universal's 2021 arrangement split its 18-month US pay-1 period into three blocks. According to The Entertainment Strategy Guy, live-action films ran on Peacock for four months, moved to Amazon's Prime Video and IMDb TV for 10 months, and returned to Peacock for the final four. Netflix took the same middle 10 months for DreamWorks Animation and Illumination titles, according to Next TV.

Pay-2 follows. FilmTake reported that Netflix holds Sony films exclusively in the US for nine months before they move to Disney under a separate agreement covering Disney+, Hulu and linear networks such as ABC, FX and Freeform. Starz took a pay-2 position on Universal films after their 18-month pay-1 period.

Origins: the pay cable boom and a nine-month window

Pay-1 emerged with pay cable in the 1970s. HBO began offering films to local cable systems and went on satellite in 1975, creating a national network, according to the US District Court for the Southern District of New York's ruling in United States v. Columbia Pictures Industries. By 1980 HBO had almost 6 million subscribers, 69% of the pay cable market, according to the same ruling.

The studios disliked that concentration. In 1980 Columbia, MCA (Universal's parent), Paramount and Twentieth Century-Fox formed Premiere, a satellite pay service backed by Getty Oil, and reserved their films for it during a "nine-month window" before any other satellite-fed pay network could license them. The Justice Department sued on August 4, 1980. On December 31, 1980, the court granted a preliminary injunction, finding the window was likely an illegal group boycott. The court noted that the four studios accounted for roughly one-third of the films and one-half of the revenue paid for films in that market. It also quoted Premiere's own brochure: affiliates would show major films "nine months before any other satellite fed pay television network."

Output deals then became standard. Starz held Sony's pay-1 rights from 2005, according to Deseret News, citing Deadline. In December 2012 Disney made Netflix the only US subscription service to carry its first-run films, starting with its 2016 theatrical slate, according to The Next Web. That deal moved pay-1 from cable channels to streaming. It ended when Disney pulled its films for its own service, Disney+.

Why it matters for marketers

The pay-1 window decides where a cinema campaign's audience can next find a film without paying per title, and on which ad-supported tier. That matters now because the buyers of pay-1 rights are also among the largest sellers of connected TV (CTV) inventory.

Recent theatrical releases are among the most watched titles on subscription services. Warner Bros. Discovery said in January 2026 that half of A24's 2025 pay-1 titles ranked among HBO Max's ten most watched films within their first two weeks, and that nearly 70% of viewers who watched an A24 film returned for more, averaging four titles. For advertisers buying against those services, the pay-1 slate shapes when audience peaks occur and which genres dominate them.

Limitations and disputes

The term describes a contractual slot, not a fixed length of time. Published figures for when pay-1 opens range from 45 to 120 days after cinema release for the same era, and from 9 to 18 months for how long it lasts. Because the contracts are confidential, those numbers come mostly from reporting and analysts, not studios.

Vertical integration has blurred the window. When a studio owns the subscription service, the boundary between pay-1 and an in-house release is an accounting choice. PPC Land reported that an Amazon MGM comedy reached Prime Video five days after its cinema debut, a gap far shorter than any traditional pay-1 timing.

Territory fragmentation is another weakness. Sony's January 2026 global deal with Netflix cannot take full effect until early 2029 because existing regional deals have to expire first, according to Broadband TV News. Viewers in different countries therefore find the same film on different services for years.

The Premiere case also shows that a window can become an illegal boycott when competitors coordinate it.

Pay-1 versus PVOD and TVOD. Premium and standard video on demand charge per title, either to rent or to buy. Pay-1 is the first period in which a film is included in a subscription fee.

Pay-1 versus pay-2. Pay-2 is the next subscription window, usually sold to a different service after pay-1 ends, as with Disney's rights to Sony films after Netflix.

Pay-1 versus theatrical window. The theatrical window is the period of cinema exclusivity before any home release. Its length partly determines when pay-1 can begin, but the two are negotiated separately.

Pay-1 versus pay-per-view. Pay-per-view sells a single viewing, often of a live event, for a one-off fee. Despite the shared word "pay", it is a transactional model.

Recent developments

Two pay-1 renewals in January 2026 showed the slot remains central to film licensing. On January 14, Warner Bros. Discovery renewed A24's multi-year US pay-1 output and library deal with HBO Max. Days later Netflix expanded its Sony agreement from the US to the world. Netflix's shareholder letter said the Sony partnership marked the first time a distribution service would premiere theatrical films in the pay-1 window simultaneously on a global basis. Deadline reported the deal as worth more than $7 billion. Neither company disclosed the price.

The first large test of that pipeline arrived in the summer. Sony's Spider-Man: Brand New Day opened on July 31, 2026, and helped AMC draw 10.2 million moviegoers as the film opened to $355 million. As of July 2026 no Netflix date had been confirmed.

Consolidation is reshaping who buys pay-1 at all. Paramount's acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery closed on October 6, 2026, joining two studios with two subscription services after the parties had agreed in February to combine Paramount+ and HBO Max. On November 9, Skydance said it would sell the two services as a bundle from early 2027 and cited 30 theatrical releases across Paramount and Warner Bros., with a new film arriving on the bundled services every two weeks on average, according to TheWrap.

Timeline

  • 1975 - HBO goes on satellite, creating a national pay television network.
  • 1980 - Columbia, MCA, Paramount and Twentieth Century-Fox form Premiere with Getty Oil, built on a nine-month exclusive pay window.
  • August 4, 1980 - The US Justice Department sues to block Premiere.
  • December 31, 1980 - A federal court in New York enjoins Premiere, finding the nine-month window likely an illegal group boycott.
  • 2005 - Starz begins its pay-1 relationship with Sony Pictures.
  • December 2012 - Disney and Netflix agree a US pay-1 deal starting with Disney's 2016 releases.
  • 2019 - Disney's Netflix output arrangement winds down ahead of Disney+.
  • April 8, 2021 - Netflix wins US pay-1 rights to Sony films from 2022, replacing Starz.
  • July 2021 - Universal splits its 18-month pay-1 period between Peacock and Amazon, and gives Netflix the middle 10 months for animated films.
  • December 9, 2021 - NBCUniversal says most of its 2022 slate will reach Peacock 45 days after theatrical premiere.
  • January 14, 2026 - HBO Max and A24 renew their US pay-1 output and library deal.
  • January 16, 2026 - Netflix and Sony announce a global pay-1 deal, with full worldwide availability expected in early 2029.
  • July 31, 2026 - Spider-Man: Brand New Day opens in US cinemas.
  • October 6, 2026 - Paramount's acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery closes.
  • November 9, 2026 - Skydance announces an HBO Max and Paramount+ bundle for early 2027.

Summary

Who: Film studios sell pay-1 rights, and subscription services buy them. Historically the buyers were premium cable channels such as HBO and Starz. Today they are mainly streamers, including Netflix (Sony), Peacock (Universal) and HBO Max (Warner Bros. and A24).

What: The pay-1 window is the first exclusive subscription period for a film after its cinema and transactional home release, sold mostly through multi-year output deals with set start dates, terms, fees, holdbacks and withdrawal clauses.

When: The concept dates to the pay cable boom of the 1970s, was tested in court over Premiere's nine-month window in 1980, moved to streaming with Disney's 2012 Netflix deal, and went global with Netflix and Sony in January 2026.

Where: Pay-1 is licensed territory by territory, mostly in national deals. Sony's Netflix agreement is the first to aim for simultaneous worldwide pay-1 premieres, with full coverage expected in early 2029.

Why: Studios use windows to charge each audience a different price at a different time. For subscription services, and for advertisers buying their ad-supported tiers, pay-1 films are among the most watched titles, which is why the slot draws multibillion-dollar bids.