Starz

Starz (stylized as STARZ since 2016; pronounced "stars") is an American premium cable and satellite television network owned by Lions Gate Entertainment, and is the flagship property of parent subsidiary Starz Inc. Programming on Starz consists of theatrically released motion pictures and first-run original television series. Originally created in 1994 as a multiplex service of Encore (now Starz Encore), Starz operates six 24-hour, linear multiplex channels; a traditional subscription video on demand service; and a namesake over-the-top streaming platform that both acts as a TV Everywhere offering for Starz's linear television subscribers and is sold directly to streaming-only consumers.

Starz is also sold independently of traditional and over-the-top multichannel video programming distributors a la carte through Apple TV Channels and Amazon Video Channels, which feature VOD library content and live feeds of Starz's linear television services (consisting of the primary channel's East and West Coast feeds and, for Amazon Video customers, the East Coast feeds of its five multiplex channels). Starz's programming has been licensed for use by a number of channels and platforms worldwide, and the brand name is licensed by Bell Media for a companion channel of the Canadian-based company's Crave premium service.

Starz and its sister networks, Starz Encore and MoviePlex, are headquartered in Burbank, CA, with satellite office facilities located at the Meridian International Business Center complex in Englewood, Colorado, and at a small office located on 5th Avenue in New York City. As of September 2018, Starz was available to approximately 28.517 million U.S. households that had a subscription to a multichannel television provider (27.675 million of which receive Starz's primary channel at minimum).

History
Starz, originally stylized as "STARZ!" with an exclamation point, was launched at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time on February 1, 1994, primarily on cable systems operated by Tele-Communications Inc.; the first two movies aired on the network were dramas released in 1992: respectively, Scent of a Woman and The Crying Game. The network was originally operated as a joint venture between TCI and Liberty Media (both companies were controlled by John Malone), with TCI owning a 50.1% controlling interest in the channel.

Starz made its debut as the first phase of a seven-channel thematic multiplex that was launched by Starz (then Encore Media Group) over the course of the succeeding eight months, with the remaining six channels being launched between July and September 1994. The multiplex was intended to only include six channels, but on May 31, 1993, Encore acquired the pay cable rights to telecast recent feature films from Universal Pictures released after that year; as a result, TCI/Liberty decided to create an additional premium pay TV service to serve as a competitor to HBO and Showtime. The network carried the moniker "Encore 8" in its on-air branding as part of a numbering system that was used by Encore's multiplex channels. Early trademark filings indicated that TCI/Liberty originally proposed names including "Applause" and "Stars" for the service (the "s" in the latter was ultimately changed to a "z" in the final naming).

Starz focused more on recent feature films, while Starz Encore (then Encore) focused on films released between the 1960s and the 1980s, before adding recent film fare itself in July 1999. It also held the television rights to releases from Carolco Pictures, New Line Cinema (as well as its sibling labels Fine Line Features and Turner Pictures), and the Walt Disney Company–owned studios Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures and Miramax. Films from those studios were not carried on Starz until 1997, after Disney's output agreement with Showtime for its non-family-oriented films concluded. The network restricted the scheduling of films that contained graphic sexual or violent content to late evening and overnight time periods.

Starz's availability was mainly limited to TCI's systems at launch, debuting with a one-month free preview available to prospective subscribers; it would eventually sign its first major carriage agreement outside the TCI group, through a deal with Continental Cablevision in September 1995. In June 1997, Comcast signed an agreement to carry the network on its Pennsylvania and New Jersey systems to replace Philadelphia-based PRISM after that network shut down that October following the loss of its (and sister network SportsChannel Philadelphia's) sports programming to Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia. The network gained carriage deals with many other major U.S. cable and satellite providers by the early 2000s, particularly with the adoption of digital cable, allowing for providers to add channels that they (even with capacity expansions of up to 60 channels) previously had limited room to carry. Starz was available to an estimated 2.8 million pay television subscribers by 1996, only one million of whom had subscribed to a cable or satellite provider other than TCI.

As a startup network, Starz endured major losses during its early years, with total deficits topping US$203 million and annual losses of US$150 million by 1997. It was predicted to lose an additional US$300 million in revenue before it was predicted to break even. Partly in an effort to get the network's substantial losses off its books, TCI announced a deal on June 2, 1997, in which it transferred majority ownership of the corporate entity that operated Starz, Encore Media Group, to sister company Liberty Media; TCI retained a 20% minority ownership interest in Encore Media Group. Liberty Media assumed the former company's stake in the subsidiary in 1999, following TCI's merger with AT&T Corporation.

By May 1998, Starz maintained a subscriber base reaching 7.6 million households with a cable or satellite television subscription. Encore Media Group was later renamed the Starz Encore Media Group in 2000.

As part of a corporate restructuring plan in 2003, Starz Encore Group eliminated 100 jobs in its nine regional offices, and closed four of the offices outright. On March 25, 2005, the Starz Encore Group corporate entity was renamed Starz Entertainment. A few days later, on March 28, 2005, Starz introduced a new logo, and was subsequently rebranded as "starz", in all lowercase. On November 19, 2009, Liberty Media spun off Starz into a separate public tracking stock called Liberty Starz.

On the first day of the 2010s decade, Chris Albrecht joined Starz as its president and chief executive officer, then overseeing all of the Starz entities including Starz Entertainment, Overture Films, Anchor Bay Entertainment and Film Roman. On August 8, 2012, Liberty Media announced that it would spin off the Liberty Starz subsidiary into a separate publicly traded company. The spin-off of the subsidiary was completed on January 11, 2013, with Liberty Starz changing its name to Starz as a result.

On April 5, 2016, Starz was rebranded, introducing a new logo, this time stylized as "STARZ" in all uppercase. As part of the rebranding, Starz added all the Encore channels to its moniker, therefore increasing the Starz channel lineup to 14 Starz premium channels. Its main channel was rebranded Starz Encore and carries reruns of Starz Originals in addition to films.

On June 30, 2016, Lionsgate agreed to acquire Starz Inc. for $4.4 billion in cash and stock; the acquisition was completed five months later on December 8.

In April 2019, Starz was widely criticized in the tech press and by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for sending legal demands to Twitter in order to remove links to a news article which discussed piracy but contained neither pirated content nor links to pirated content. Starz initially responded by issuing further DMCA complaints against those criticizing them, including against a tweet from the Electronic Frontier Foundation stating that "Starz should withdraw its takedown and refrain from harassing journalists". However, they subsequently apologized, clarified that the invalid DMCA claims were sent on their behalf by a third party contractor called The Social Element and promised that they are "working with our vendors to reinstate any such content that was inappropriately targeted for removal."

In late 2019, LandonToei annouced to buy Starz's parent company & Sesame Workshop for $31 billion, the deal completed in 2020.

In January 2021, StarzPlay signed a deal with Abu Dhabi Media, which allows the subscribers to watch UFC fights and events live.

Programming
Main article: List of programs broadcasted by Starz

Film library
As of 2018, Starz and sister networks Starz Encore and MoviePlex maintain exclusive first-run film licensing agreements with Sony Pictures Entertainment (since January 2005; including content from subsidiaries Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Classics, Screen Gems, Destination Films, Triumph Films, and TriStar Pictures, but not Sony Pictures Animation because they have a separate deal with Netflix), Anchor Bay Entertainment, EuropaCorp and Warren Miller Films (since 1997).

The first-run film output agreement with Sony was renewed for nine years on February 11, 2013; the Warren Miller output deal was renewed for ten years on October 19, 2009. On April 8, 2021, Sony announced that they would not be renewing the agreement with Starz in favor of a new first-run agreement with Netflix.

Starz also shows sub-runs (runs of films that have recently received broadcast or syndicated television airings) of theatrical films from Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (including subsidiaries Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, and Hollywood Pictures - all for films released before 2016), Warner Bros. Entertainment (including content from subsidiaries New Line Cinema, Turner Entertainment – both for films released prior to 2005 – and Castle Rock Entertainment), Universal Pictures (including content from subsidiaries Universal Animation Studios, Focus Features, and DreamWorks Animation all for films released prior to 2003), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (including content from subsidiaries United Artists, Orion Pictures, and The Samuel Goldwyn Company), Paramount Pictures (including content from DreamWorks Pictures (pre-2011), Republic Pictures, Miramax, Paramount Vantage and television rights to the Cannon Films and Carolco Pictures libraries), Revolution Studios, Overture Films, Yari Film Group, and the network's sister company Lions Gate Entertainment (since 2012).

Films for which Starz has pay-cable rights usually also run on Encore and MoviePlex during the duration of its term of licensing. From 1995 to 2002, Starz had broadcast occasional original made-for-pay cable movies produced by the in-house company Starz! Pictures.

In January 1997, Starz secured a licensing agreement with Paramount Pictures, broadcasting over 300 titles. Paramount's first contract with Starz expired in January 2006. In April 2013, Starz reassumed sub-run rights to Paramount Pictures' feature film releases. Films that were initially broadcast through this deal included Dear God, All I Want for Christmas and Boomerang.