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Is STARZ leaving the Outlander casting announcements to management companies?

By Alexandria Ingham

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA - JULY 26: Starz COO Jeffrey Hirsch speaks onstage during the Starz segment of the Summer 2019 Television Critics Association Press Tour at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on July 26, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images)
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA - JULY 26: Starz COO Jeffrey Hirsch speaks onstage during the Starz segment of the Summer 2019 Television Critics Association Press Tour at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on July 26, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images) /
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Two Outlander Season 5 casting announcements have been made through a management company. Is this a new plan for STARZ?

Over the weekend, Outlander fans learned that two actors were joining the series for Season 5. We didn’t get details, but we at least got to know the names of the actors and saw faces. The question is why STARZ hasn’t announced these officially themselves.

The premium cable network does have a habit of keeping things as quiet as possible. There were very few casting announcements made for Season 4, with only some of the bigger roles getting officially notices. Other roles were guessed through IMDb reveals or made by management companies.

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Season 5 should see a number of big characters added to the series. However, we’ve had no announcements of new cast members made officially by STARZ. Instead, the network seems to be making the announcements through the management companies. Just over the weekend, we learned that Mark Barrett and Leonard Cook are joining the fifth season.

Why would STARZ reveal through the management companies? What benefit does it gain? There are a few reasons why this could be happening.

The main reason is to make announcements without making a big deal about them. This helps to keep spoilers under wraps. After all, announcing that Barrett and Cook are in Season 5 hasn’t exactly given us much to go on. We don’t know who they will play and can only speculate, which helps to avoid spoilers for the series.

Most of the big publications aren’t going to write about the new cast members joining. It’s not “big” enough news for them, even though we, as fans, love any bits and pieces that we can get. We want to speculate, we want to welcome new members to the Sassenach family, and we want to get tidbits during Droughtlander.

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Another reason to leave it to the management companies is to allow the fans to do the work. Once one fan picks up the news, it’s possible to spread through hundreds and thousands of Sassenachs relatively easily through Twitter or Facebook groups. STARZ spends less time on the promotion for a show in the off-season and more focus on the promotion of shows currently on the air.

Finally, it’s possible that these are just small roles. While Barrett and Cook are said to have “featured roles,” those roles could just be in one episode. The roles could be considered relatively small for the series in the sense of TV promotion but important for the overall storyline for the fans.

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Why do you think STARZ is leaving the Outlander casting to management companies? Do you prefer it this way or when major public announcements are made? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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