Starz (stylized in
all caps
In typography, text or font in all caps (short for "all capitals") contains capital letters without any lowercase letters. For example: All-caps text can be seen in legal documents, advertisements, newspaper headlines, and the titles on book co ...
as STARZ; pronounced "stars") is an American
pay television
Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to Subscription business model, subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichan ...
network owned by
Starz Entertainment
Starz Entertainment Corp, formerly known officially as Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation and commonly as Lions Gate and/or Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American entertainment company currently headquartered in Santa Monica, California. Founded by ...
, and is the
flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of navy, naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically ...
property of
Starz Inc. Launched in 1994 as a
multiplex service of what is now
Starz Encore,
its programming consists of
theatrically released motion pictures
A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...
and first-run
original television series
A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming plat ...
. Starz operates six 24-hour, linear multiplex channels; a traditional subscription
video on demand
Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films Digital distribution, digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typica ...
service; and a namesake
over-the-top streaming
Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downl ...
platform that both acts as a
TV Everywhere
TV Everywhere (also known as authenticated streaming or authenticated video on-demand) refers to a type of American subscription business model wherein access to streaming video content from a television channel requires users to "authenticate" ...
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 distributor
A multichannel television service, also known as simply a television provider, is a type of service provider who distributes television programming to its customers for a subscription fee. Subscription television providers distribute televisio ...
s
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
East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that ea ...
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
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...
name is licensed by
Bell Media
Bell Media Inc. (Canadian French, French: ) is a Canadian media conglomerate that is the mass media subsidiary of BCE Inc. (also known as Bell Canada Enterprises, the owner of telecommunications company Bell Canada). Its operations include nati ...
for a
companion channel of the
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
-based company's
Crave premium service.
Starz and its sister networks, the aforementioned
Starz Encore and
MoviePlex, are headquartered in
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...
, with satellite office facilities located at the Meridian International Business Center complex in
Englewood, Colorado
The City of Englewood is a home rule municipality located in Arapahoe County, Colorado, United States. The town population was 33,659 at the 2020 United States census. Englewood is a part of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO Metropolitan S ...
, and at a small office located on 5th Avenue in New York City. , Starz was available to approximately 28.517 million American households that had a subscription to a multichannel television provider (27.675 million of which receive Starz's primary channel at minimum). Starz's
video on demand
Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films Digital distribution, digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typica ...
streaming media
Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a Computer network, network for playback using a Media player (disambiguation), media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of Network packet, packets from a Server (computing), ...
service had 27.92 million paid subscribers as of 2024.
History
Launch and early history
Starz (initially stylized as "STARZ!" with an exclamation point) was launched at 8:00 p.m.
Eastern Time
The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, and the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico.
* Eastern Standard Time (EST) is five hours behi ...
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 operated as a
joint venture
A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...
between
TCI and
Liberty Media
Liberty Media Corporation (commonly referred to as Liberty Media or just Liberty) is an American mass media company founded by John C. Malone in 1991. The company has three divisions, reflecting its ownership stakes in the Formula One Group, S ...
(both companies were controlled by
John Malone
John Carl Malone (born March 7, 1941) is an American billionaire businessman, landowner, and philanthropist. He was chief executive officer (CEO) of Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI), a cable and media giant, from 1973 to 1996. As of 2016, Malone i ...
), 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
Multiplex may refer to:
Science and technology
* Multiplex communication, combining many signals into one transmission circuit or channel
** Multiplex (television), a group of digital television or radio channels that are combined for broadcast
* ...
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 broadcast recent feature films from
Universal Pictures
Universal City Studios LLC, doing business as Universal Pictures (also known as Universal Studios or simply Universal), is an American filmmaking, film production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered at the 10 Universal Ci ...
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
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
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's 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
Carolco Pictures, Inc. was an American independent film studio that was founded by Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna in 1976. Kassar and Vajna ran Carolco together until 1989, when Vajna left to form Cinergi Pictures. Carolco hit its peak in th ...
,
New Line Cinema
New Line Productions, Inc., Trade name, doing business as New Line Cinema, is an American film production, film and television production company that is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, a division of the Major film studios, ...
(as well as its sibling labels
Fine Line Features and
Turner Pictures), and the
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...
–owned studios
Touchstone Pictures
Touchstone Pictures was an American film distribution label of Walt Disney Studios, founded and owned by The Walt Disney Company. Feature films released under the Touchstone label were produced and financed by Walt Disney Studios, and featured ...
,
Hollywood Pictures
Hollywood Pictures Company was an American film production label of Walt Disney Studios, founded and owned by The Walt Disney Company. Established in 1989, by Disney CEO Michael Eisner and studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg, Hollywood Pictures was ...
and
Miramax Films
Miramax, LLC, formerly known as Miramax Films, is an American independent film and television production and distribution company owned by beIN Media Group and Paramount Global. Based in Los Angeles, California, it was founded on December 19, ...
. 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. 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.
In June 1997,
Comcast
Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings,Before the AT&T Broadband, AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, not th ...
signed an agreement to carry the network on its
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
and
New Jersey
New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...
systems to replace
Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
-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
NBC Sports Philadelphia is an American regional sports network owned by the NBC Sports Group unit of NBCUniversal, which in turn is owned by locally based cable television provider Comcast (and owns a controlling 75% interest), and the Philadel ...
. 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
AT&T Corporation, an abbreviation for its former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, was an American telecommunications company that provided voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to busi ...
.
By May 1998, Starz maintained a subscriber base reaching 7.6 million households with a cable or satellite television subscription.
2000s onwards

The network gained carriage deals with many other major American cable and satellite providers by the early 2000s, particularly with the adoption of
digital cable
Digital cable is the distribution of cable television using digital data and video compression. The technology was first developed by General Instrument. By 2000, most cable companies offered digital features, eventually replacing their previo ...
, allowing for providers to add channels that they (even with capacity expansions of up to 60 channels) previously had limited room to carry. Encore Media Group was 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 at 6:30am EST, 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
Tracking stock, also known as letter stock and targeted stock, is a specialized equity offering issued by a company that is based on the operations of a defined business within the larger organization (such as, for instance, a wholly owned subsid ...
called Liberty Starz. On January 1, 2010,
Chris Albrecht joined Starz as its president and
chief executive officer
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization.
CEOs find roles in variou ...
, then overseeing all of the Starz entities including Starz Entertainment,
Overture Films,
Anchor Bay Entertainment
The revived Anchor Bay Entertainment is an American independent film production and distribution company owned by Umbrelic Entertainment co-founders Thomas Zambeck and Brian Katz. Anchor Bay Entertainment markets and releases "new release genre ...
and
Film Roman
Film Roman, LLC, is an American animation studio currently based in Woodland Hills, California and formerly in Burbank. It was previously owned by Starz Inc., which is now a division of Lionsgate, and currently by Waterman Entertainment, the p ...
. 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 Lions Gate, Lion Gate or similar terms may refer to:
Gates
*Lion Gate at Mycenae in Greece
*Lion Gate, one of the entrances to the ancient Hittite city of Hattusa, now in Turkey
*Lion Gate, one of the entrances to the gardens of Hampton Court Pala ...
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
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties.
It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...
for sending legal demands to
Twitter
Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
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
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...
complaints against those criticizing them, including against a tweet from the
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties.
It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...
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."
Lionsgate was renamed to Starz Entertainment in 2024, 6 months after spinning off most of their businesses into a new company known as
Lionsgate Studios
Lionsgate Studios Corp. (simply known as Lionsgate Studios) is a Canadian-American film and television production and distribution conglomerate, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, and primarily based in Santa Monica, California. It was f ...
.
Channels
List of channels
Depending on the service provider, Starz provides up to twelve multiplex channels – six 24-hour multiplex channels, all of which are
simulcast
Simulcast (a portmanteau of "simultaneous broadcast") is the broadcasting of programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultaneously) ...
in both
standard definition
Standard-definition television (SDTV; also standard definition or SD) is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high or enhanced definition. ''Standard'' refers to offering a similar resolution to the ...
and
high definition – as well as a
subscription video-on-demand service (Starz On Demand). Starz broadcasts its primary and multiplex channels on Eastern and
Pacific Time Zone
The Pacific Time Zone (PT) is a time zone encompassing parts of western Canada, the western United States, and western Mexico. Places in this zone observe standard time by subtracting eight hours from Coordinated Universal Time ( UTC−08:00 ...
schedules. The respective coastal feeds of each channel are usually packaged together (though most cable providers only offer the east and west coast feeds of the main Starz channel), resulting in the
difference in local airtimes for a particular movie or program between two geographic locations being three hours at most.
The premium film services Encore and MoviePlex, which are also owned by Starz, Inc., operate as separate services; as such, subscribers to one of the services do not have to subscribe to any of the others. Some providers offer Encore and MoviePlex's multiplex channels on a separate digital cable tier from Starz. However, Encore and, depending on its carriage, MoviePlex are frequently sold together in a package with Starz.
Background
In 1994, Encore launched the pay television industry's first "themed" multiplex service – seven additional movie channels that each focused on a specific genre. This was intended to include only six channels, but Encore decided to launch Starz as a competitor to HBO and Showtime after it acquired the pay-TV rights to broadcast films by Universal Studios released after 1993.
A numbering system was used for each service to identify itself as an Encore channel, though this system was abandoned for most of the channels in 1996, with the tagline "an encore network" (which Starz! also used, albeit sparingly) being used from then until 2002. Starz continued to heavily include the "Encore 8" moniker in its main
IDs, feature presentation bumpers and select bumpers until 2002, even as it transitioned into a separate channel from Encore.
The tie to Encore branding-wise continued even as Starz was given its own slate of multiplex channels in the late 1990s. The first of these to debut was Starz! 2 in 1996, maintaining a set lineup of four different movies scheduled at the same times each day (inspired by the scheduling used by
movie theater
A movie theater (American English) or cinema (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), also known as a movie house, cinema hall, picture house, picture theater, the movies, the pictures, or simply theater, is a business ...
s) with the slate of films changing each Friday. This was followed in 1997 by the debut of a joint venture with
BET Networks
Black Entertainment Television LLC (Trade name, doing business as the BET Media Group, and formerly known as BET Networks) is an American television company currently owned by American media conglomerate Paramount Global under its CBS Entertainmen ...
called BET Movies: Starz! 3. Two additional multiplex channels began operations in May 1999. Starz! Family carried family-oriented
theatrical
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communic ...
and
home video
Home video is recorded media sold or Video rental shop, rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD and Blu-ray. ...
film releases, was launched possibly in response to HBO's own family-oriented multiplex channel, HBO Family, which debuted three years earlier. The other service was Starz! Cinema, a channel featuring critically acclaimed independent films and movies outside the mainstream cinema. Starz! 2 was also renamed Starz! Theater to better reflect its format.
The first changes made following the original rollout of the multiplex occurred in 2001, with the rebranding of BET Movies: Starz! as Black Starz! after BET withdrew from the partnership during its acquisition by Viacom (which owned rival pay service Showtime at the time) in 2001. A seventh Starz multiplex channel was launched in 2004: Starz! Kids was created as a movie service featuring films aimed at children between 2 and 11 years of age, maintaining a format similar to that of Starz! Family. Unlike the other Starz multiplex channels, Starz! Kids was launched on cable systems on a case-by-case basis instead of on a broader national scale.
The entire multiplex was overhauled on March 28, 2005, as part of an extensive rebranding of the Starz and Encore services. While Encore debuted a slightly modified logo and applied the "Encore" brand to the names of its six multiplex channels, Starz underwent a more dramatic makeover, with a completely redesigned logo – which included the
exclamation mark
The exclamation mark (also known as exclamation point in American English) is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or to show wikt:emphasis, emphasis. The exclamation mark often marks ...
being dropped from the channel's name – and a standardized graphics package that was implemented across all of its channels (with some modifications for each channel's format).
The programming formats of several channels changed entirely: Starz! Theater was relaunched as Starz Edge, a movie channel aimed primarily at men 18 to 34 years old (nicknamed "The New Generation" by the channel). Starz! Kids and Starz! Family were combined into a single channel called Starz Kids and Family, to make room for a new channel focusing on comedic feature films called Starz Comedy. Black Starz! also changed its name to Starz InBlack. The only multiplex channel (other than the primary feed) that retained its original name was Starz Cinema.
The Starz multiplex has been marketed under several names over the years including the "Starz Encore Super Pak" and the "Starz Super Pak". The multiplex now has no "official" marketed name .
On March 28, 2016, Starz introduced a new logo and tagline, "Obsessable". This coincided with a revamp of the Starz channels effective April 5 of that year, with all of Encore's channels taking on the "Starz" brand, and Encore's main channel being rebranded "Starz Encore", and airing reruns of Starz originals in addition to films. Starz now has 14 channels in its package.
Other services
Starz HD

Starz HD is a high-definition simulcast feed of Starz that broadcasts in the
1080i
In high-definition television (HDTV) and video display technology, 1080i is a video display format with 1080 lines of vertical resolution and Interlaced video, interlaced scanning method. This format was once a standard in HDTV. It was particular ...
resolution format. In addition to its main channel, Starz also operates high-definition simulcast feeds of its five multiplex channels. When it was launched in December 2003, the simulcast covered only the east and west coast feeds of the main Starz channel. An
enhanced-definition simulcast feed and a separate HD channel called Sharper Movies HD, that would have broadcast in the 1080i format and be structured similarly to the original format of sister channel Encore's MoviePlex (in which Sharper Movies would broadcast programming from each Starz channel in daily sampler blocks), were also planned. Plans for the latter service were dropped because of a lack of interest from providers to charge a premium fee for the network. HD feeds of Starz Kids and Family, Starz Comedy and Starz Edge, followed in 2007.
The remaining Starz multiplex channels, Starz Cinema and Starz In Black, launched their HD simulcast feeds on June 23, 2010, with
DirecTV
DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...
becoming the first provider to offer all six channels (including both coastal feeds of the primary Starz channel) in HD. Among others, Starz HD is carried nationally by satellite providers DirecTV and
Dish Network
DISH Network L.L.C., often referred to as DISH, an abbreviation for Digital Sky Highway, is an American provider of satellite television and IPTV services and wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation.
The company was originally establ ...
and regionally by
Verizon FiOS,
AT&T U-verse,
Comcast Xfinity,
Time Warner Cable
Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, o ...
, Cox Communications,
Cablevision
Cablevision Systems Corporation was an American cable television company with systems serving areas surrounding New York City. It was the fifth-largest cable provider and ninth-largest television provider in the United States. Throughout its ex ...
and
Charter Communications.
Starz On Demand
Starz operates a video-on-demand (VOD) television service called Starz On Demand, which is available at no additional charge to new and existing Starz subscribers. The service was launched on September 19, 2001, debuting on
Adelphia Communications
Adelphia Communications Corporation was an American cable television company with headquarters in Coudersport, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1952 by brothers Gus and John Rigas after the pair purchased a cable television franchise for US$300. C ...
'
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...
, system. The service offers early premieres of feature films that are scheduled to premiere on Starz, up to one month prior to their pay cable debut on the primary linear channel. Starz on Demand's rotating program selection incorporates selected new titles that are added each Friday, and existing program titles held over from the previous one to two weeks. The Starz On Demand name was also used for an online broadband streaming movie service operated by Starz and
RealNetworks
RealNetworks LLC is an American technology company and provider of Internet streaming media delivery software and services based in Seattle, Washington. The company also provides subscription-based online entertainment services and mobile enter ...
from 2003 to 2004. In March 2011, Starz On Demand launched a third VOD service (in addition to its standard-definition and high-definition VOD services), offering movies presented in
3D to customers of Comcast and Verizon FiOS at no additional charge.
Starzplay (U.S.)

The original incarnation of Starzplay was a website and
mobile app
A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a smartphone, phone, tablet computer, tablet, or smartwatch, watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop appli ...
that featured original programming and feature film content from Starz available for streaming in standard or high definition. It was available to Starz subscribers of Verizon FIOS, AT&T U-verse, Cox Communications,
Xfinity by Comcast and DirecTV until it was merged with Starz.com on April 5, 2016. The former incarnation of the Starzplay online service (which is structured as a
TV Everywhere
TV Everywhere (also known as authenticated streaming or authenticated video on-demand) refers to a type of American subscription business model wherein access to streaming video content from a television channel requires users to "authenticate" ...
-style service) was launched on October 8, 2012, with the release of the
iPad
The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...
,
iPhone
The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...
and
iPod Touch
The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and formerly marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a po ...
app until they were merged with Starz.com on April 5, 2016.
The Starzplay name was borrowed from a prior service offered in conjunction with
Netflix
Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
. It was created in 2008 after the subscription streaming service struck an agreement with Starz Entertainment to allow Netflix to sub-license rights to films from distributors that maintain output deals with the linear Starz channel for online viewing – in lieu of acquiring the digital distribution rights on its own, due to the expense of acquiring newer film titles – as Netflix was considered to be merely a "content aggregator". Because Netflix chose to sub-license digital rights through Starz instead of negotiating with the studios,
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures is an American film distributor within the Disney Entertainment division of the Walt Disney Company. It handles theatrical and occasional digital distribution, marketing, and promotion for films produced and ...
threatened not to renew its output deal with Starz unless it either discontinued its deal with Netflix or paid Disney a licensing fee for digital streaming rights to its films (Netflix ended up assuming rights to most film releases by Walt Disney Studios from Starz in 2016).
Starzplay (as a Netflix service) was first made available to Starz subscribers of the Verizon FiOS television service. Starz content (including most of its original programming and series content that the channel acquired through domestic and international distributors) was made available on Netflix's "Watch Instantly" platform. It was the third subscription video-on-demand online streaming service operated by Starz: Starz Ticket operated from 2004 to 2006, under a joint venture between Starz Entertainment and RealNetworks. Starz launched Vongo, a separate online movie service for subscribers, which operated from 2006 until it was discontinued on September 30, 2008.
On September 1, 2011, Starz announced that it would not renew its streaming agreement with Netflix, which ended on February 28, 2012; movie titles that are available on DVD from
Sony Pictures
Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, acquires, and distributes filmed entertainment (theatrical motion pictures, television programs, and rec ...
, Disney and other studios that maintain pay television distribution deals with Starz were not affected and can be acquired from Netflix by this method. With the expiration of the Netflix deal, film content from studios with which Starz maintains broadcast rights were no longer available for online streaming, particularly as Netflix and certain similar services such as
Vudu did not have separate streaming rights to films from these individual studios. Prior to the beta launch of its Starz Online service (which became Starzplay upon its official launch), Starz announced on November 18, 2011, that it was developing a streaming application for mobile devices, allowing the network's subscribers – and in early reports, speculation that possibly non-subscription television subscribers would be allowed as well – to view Starz's series and film content. The app was released on October 9, 2012, for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, and on May 7, 2013, for
Android devices.
An app for authenticated subscribers for the
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...
was released on December 3, 2013, followed by a similar app for the
Xbox One
The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Austra ...
on August 5, 2014.
Lionsgate+
Lionsgate+ (previously Starzplay),
Starzplay Arabia, and Lionsgate Play (in the south and Southeast Asia region) were Starz' international streaming services for viewers outside North America.
Starzplay Arabia was the first Starz-branded service to be localized outside the United States, launching on April 2, 2015, in 17 countries in the
Middle East and North Africa
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), also referred to as West Asia and North Africa (WANA) or South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA), is a geographic region which comprises the Middle East (also called West Asia) and North Africa together ...
region, breaching those territories before its biggest competitor in media streaming being Netflix. Starzplay Arabia remains available even as the U.S. version of the service has been discontinued. In 2018, the service became available in
Pakistan
Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...
, as a joint venture between Cinepax, a cinema chain in Pakistan, and
Lionsgate Lions Gate, Lion Gate or similar terms may refer to:
Gates
*Lion Gate at Mycenae in Greece
*Lion Gate, one of the entrances to the ancient Hittite city of Hattusa, now in Turkey
*Lion Gate, one of the entrances to the gardens of Hampton Court Pala ...
's StarzPlay Arabia. In 2019, Starzplay was launched in
Brazil
Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
,
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
,
Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
,
Spain
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
and the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
. In 2020, it became available in
Argentina
Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
,
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...
, and
Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
.
In March 2022, a 57% majority stake in Starzplay Arabia was acquired by a consortium, led by
e& (formerly known as Etisalat) and the
Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi is the capital city of the United Arab Emirates. The city is the seat of the Abu Dhabi Central Capital District, the capital city of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and the UAE's List of cities in the United Arab Emirates, second-most popu ...
-based investment group
ADQ. The deal was valued at $420m. In January 2021, Starzplay Arabia signed a deal with Abu Dhabi Media, which allows subscribers to watch UFC fights and events live.
In several countries, Lionsgate+ is provided through partnerships with cable services, such as
Vodafone
Vodafone Group Public Limited Company () is a British Multinational company, multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates Service (economic ...
in Spain,
Movistar TV in Argentina,
IndiHome
IndiHome (abbreviated from Indonesia Digital Home) is a home telephone, internet, and Internet Protocol television services owned by Telkomsel since July 1, 2023. Prior to Telkomsel's takeover, it was owned by Telkomsel's majority shareholder ...
in Indonesia and
PLDT Home in the Philippines or within
Apple TV
Apple TV is a digital media player and a microconsole developed and marketed by Apple. It is a small piece of networking hardware that sends received media data such as video and audio to a TV or external display. Its media services include ...
as well.
On September 28, 2022, Lionsgate announced the international Starzplay service would be rebranded as Lionsgate+ the following day in most countries,
eliminating much of the conflict between Lionsgate and
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...
's
Star
A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...
brand. The Starzplay Arabia and Lionsgate Play services would not be affected at that time, while Starz in the U.S. and Canada merely rebranded with a new version of the "STARZ" logo.
In November 2022, it was announced that Lionsgate+ was ending operations in the markets of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Benelux, the Nordics, and Japan before the end of the company's fiscal year.
In August 2023, Lionsgate announced that Lionsgate+ would leave Latin America on December 31, 2023. In November, the shutdown date was changed to December 11, 2023, while customers who have accessed Lionsgate+ through Amazon Prime Video would have continued to access streaming until February 9, 2024.
On November 4, 2023, Lionsgate announced that Lionsgate+ would cease its operations in the UK in early 2024. On December 19, it was confirmed that the shutdown date would be on February 29, 2024.
Starz app and subscription service
On April 5, 2016, Starz launched a new app and over-the-top subscription service to compete with
HBO Now and
Showtime's OTT subscription service. The new app, which replaced the StarzPlay service, allowed users to access Starz programming regardless of whether they had a TV package or not. The Starz app also includes offline playback functionality, allowing users to download and watch content without an internet connection.
While the new STARZ app caters mostly to the North America users, the STARZ ON app (formerly STARZPLAY) is primarily focused towards the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region. Starz ON has a diverse library of original content, with live streaming capabilities. STARZPLAY stands out as the premium live-streaming service for movies, TV shows and live sports (cricket, football & more) in the MENA region; with more than 3 million subscribers, mainly from Saudi Arabia & the United Arab Emirates.
In response to the discontinuation of StarzPlay,
Comcast
Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings,Before the AT&T Broadband, AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, not th ...
has blocked access to the new Starz app for
Comcast Xfinity customers, forcing them to instead access the network's authenticated content through the Xfinity app and website and older StarzPlay apps on platforms such as
Roku
Roku ( ) is a brand of consumer electronics that includes streaming players, smart TVs (and their operating systems), as well as a free TV streaming service. The brand is owned by Roku, Inc., an American company.
As of 2024, Roku is the U ...
. Currently, Comcast is the only major distributor to do this.
Starz on Amazon Video
In the winter of 2015, Amazon Video began offering Starz and rival premium network Showtime as add-on subscriptions for their customers; the cost is $8.99 per month, after a seven-day free trial. The content deal between Amazon and Starz not only offers the channel's current and back catalog of programming, but also movies and classic TV series currently airing on Encore and its branded networks, as well as live East Coast feeds of the Starz-branded networks and Encore.
Programming
Film library
, Starz and sister networks Starz Encore and MoviePlex maintain exclusive first-run film licensing agreements with
Lionsgate Films
Lionsgate Films (spelled as Lions Gate until 2005, and formerly Cinépix Film Properties until 1998) is a Canadian-American film production and distribution company founded in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on June 15, 1962. It was owned by Lionsga ...
(since 2022, including
Summit Entertainment
Summit Entertainment, LLC (formerly the Summit Group, Summit Export Group, Summit Entertainment Group Inc., Summit Entertainment Limited, Summit Films Limited, and Summit Entertainment N.V.) is an American film production label of Lionsgate Film ...
since 2023) and
Universal Pictures
Universal City Studios LLC, doing business as Universal Pictures (also known as Universal Studios or simply Universal), is an American filmmaking, film production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered at the 10 Universal Ci ...
(since 2022, after each films' 18 month window on
Peacock
Peafowl is a common name for two bird species of the genus '' Pavo'' and one species of the closely related genus '' Afropavo'' within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae (the pheasants and their allies). Male peafowl are referred t ...
and
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video, known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming television service owned by Amazon. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced or co-produced by ...
).
On March 2, 2021, Lionsgate announced films from Lionsgate Films would air on Starz for first-run rights starting in 2022, except Summit Entertainment which would start airing on Starz in 2023 after output deals with
Hulu
Hulu (, ) is an American Subscription business model, subscription streaming media service owned by Disney Streaming, a subsidiary of the Disney Entertainment segment of the Walt Disney Company. It was launched on October 29, 2007, initially as ...
and
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
expired at the end of 2021 and 2022 respectively. On July 15, 2021, Starz reached a licensing deal with Universal Pictures for first-run movies 18 months after they streamed on
Peacock
Peafowl is a common name for two bird species of the genus '' Pavo'' and one species of the closely related genus '' Afropavo'' within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae (the pheasants and their allies). Male peafowl are referred t ...
and
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video, known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming television service owned by Amazon. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced or co-produced by ...
respectively.
Despite being acquired by
Lions Gate Entertainment
Starz Entertainment Corp, formerly known officially as Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation and commonly as Lions Gate and/or Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American entertainment industry, entertainment company currently headquartered in Santa Monica ...
in 2016, films released under the Lionsgate label did not air on Starz until 2022 due to an output deal with
Epix until the end of 2019, then
Hulu
Hulu (, ) is an American Subscription business model, subscription streaming media service owned by Disney Streaming, a subsidiary of the Disney Entertainment segment of the Walt Disney Company. It was launched on October 29, 2007, initially as ...
until the end of 2021. Summit Entertainment films did not air on Starz until 2023 due to an output deal with
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
until the end of 2022.
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
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures is an American film distributor within the Disney Entertainment division of the Walt Disney Company. It handles theatrical and occasional digital distribution, marketing, and promotion for films produced and ...
(including subsidiaries
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film Film production company, production company and subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios (division), the Walt Disney Studios, a division of Disney Entertainment, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company. The st ...
,
Touchstone Pictures
Touchstone Pictures was an American film distribution label of Walt Disney Studios, founded and owned by The Walt Disney Company. Feature films released under the Touchstone label were produced and financed by Walt Disney Studios, and featured ...
,
Marvel Studios
Marvel Studios, LLC, formerly known as Marvel Films, is an American film and television production company. Marvel Studios is the creator of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), a media franchise and shared universe of films and television ser ...
,
Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company founded by filmmaker George Lucas in December 10, 1971 in San Rafael, California, and later moved to San Francisco in 2005. It is best known for creating and producing th ...
,
20th Century Studios
20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly 20th Century Fox, is an American film studio, film production and Film distributor, distribution company owned by the Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the ...
, and
Hollywood Pictures
Hollywood Pictures Company was an American film production label of Walt Disney Studios, founded and owned by The Walt Disney Company. Established in 1989, by Disney CEO Michael Eisner and studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg, Hollywood Pictures was ...
- all for films released before 2016),
Warren Miller Films (for films released before 2020),
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, acquires, and distributes filmed entertainment (theatrical motion pictures, television programs, and rec ...
(including subsidiaries
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Trade name, doing business as Columbia Pictures, is an American film Production company, production and Film distributor, distribution company that is the flagship unit of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group ...
,
Sony Pictures Classics,
Screen Gems
Screen Gems is an American film production company owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate, Sony Group Corporation. ''Screen Gems'' has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the de ...
,
Destination Films,
Triumph Films, and
TriStar Pictures
TriStar Pictures, Inc. (spelled as Tri-Star until 1991) is an American film studio and production company that is part of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, which is part of the Japanese conglomerate Sony, Sony Group Corporation.
The compan ...
—all for films released before 2022),
Warner Bros. Discovery (including content from subsidiaries
Warner Bros. Pictures,
New Line Cinema
New Line Productions, Inc., Trade name, doing business as New Line Cinema, is an American film production, film and television production company that is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, a division of the Major film studios, ...
,
Turner Entertainment
Turner Entertainment Co. is an American multimedia company founded by Ted Turner on August 2, 1986. Purchased by Time Warner Entertainment on October 10, 1996, as part of its acquisition of Turner Broadcasting System (TBS), the company was lar ...
—both for films released prior to 2005—and
Castle Rock Entertainment
Castle Rock Entertainment is an American independent film and television production company founded in 1987 by Martin Shafer, director Rob Reiner, Andrew Scheinman, Glenn Padnick (September 8, 1947 – February 27, 2025) and Alan Horn.
Histo ...
),
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...
(including content from subsidiaries
United Artists
United Artists (UA) is an American film production and film distribution, distribution company owned by Amazon MGM Studios. In its original operating period, it was founded in February 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford an ...
,
Orion Pictures
Orion Releasing, LLC (Trade name, doing business as Orion Pictures) is an American film production and film distribution, distribution company owned by the Amazon MGM Studios subsidiary of Amazon (company), Amazon.
It was founded in 1978 as Ori ...
, and
The Samuel Goldwyn Company
The Samuel Goldwyn Company, later known as Samuel Goldwyn Entertainment, Goldwyn Entertainment Company, Goldwyn Films, and G2 Films, was an American independent film company founded by Samuel Goldwyn Jr., the son of the famous Cinema of the Unit ...
),
Europa Corp,
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...
(including content from
DreamWorks Pictures
DreamWorks Pictures (also known as DreamWorks SKG and commonly referred to as DreamWorks) is an American film studio and Film distribution, distribution label of Amblin Partners. It was originally founded on October 12, 1994, as a live-action a ...
(pre-2011),
Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures is currently an acquisition-only label owned by Paramount Pictures. Its history dates back to Republic Pictures Corporation, an American film studio that originally operated from 1935 to 1967, based in Los Angeles, California ...
,
Nickelodeon Movies,
Dimension Films
Dimension Films was an American independent film and television production and distribution label founded in 1992, and currently owned by independent studio Lantern Entertainment. Formally one of the American " mini-majors" (i.e., small to m ...
(pre-2005),
Miramax
Miramax, LLC, formerly known as Miramax Films, is an American independent film and television production and distribution company owned by beIN Media Group and Paramount Global. Based in Los Angeles, California, it was founded on December 19, ...
,
Paramount Vantage and television rights to the
Cannon Films and
Carolco Pictures
Carolco Pictures, Inc. was an American independent film studio that was founded by Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna in 1976. Kassar and Vajna ran Carolco together until 1989, when Vajna left to form Cinergi Pictures. Carolco hit its peak in th ...
libraries),
Revolution Studios
Revolution Studios Distribution Company, LLC (operating as Revolution Studios) is an American independent motion picture and foreign sales company headed by Chief Executive Officer Scott Hemming, founded in 2000, and based in Los Angeles, Los Ang ...
,
Overture Films,
Yari Film Group, and the network's sister company
Lions Gate Entertainment
Starz Entertainment Corp, formerly known officially as Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation and commonly as Lions Gate and/or Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American entertainment industry, entertainment company currently headquartered in Santa Monica ...
(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.
Former first-run contracts
At the time of its launch, Starz had secured exclusive first-run film rights with Universal Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Miramax Films, New Line Cinema, Walt Disney Pictures, and Carolco Pictures.
Between 1995 and 2005, Starz had also broadcast films from
Turner Pictures and New Line Cinema. Starz's contract with Universal Pictures expired in late 2002, with HBO and Starz sharing half of Universal Pictures' films during the 2003 calendar year before HBO assumed pay television rights in 2004.
In 1997, Starz lost its rights to many of the
Dimension Films
Dimension Films was an American independent film and television production and distribution label founded in 1992, and currently owned by independent studio Lantern Entertainment. Formally one of the American " mini-majors" (i.e., small to m ...
to Showtime, due to its violent content surrounding the films, except for several future
Jackie Chan
Fang Shilong (born Chan Kong-sang; 7 April 1954), known professionally as Jackie Chan,; is a Hong Kong actor and filmmaker, known for his slapstick, acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, and innovative stunts, which he typically perf ...
films Dimension Films released, which Starz kept the rights. After the Showtime deal, in August 1999, Starz preemptively signed a four-year deal with Dimension Films that took effect in January 2003, in conjunction with a four-year extension of its existing deal with Miramax Films and the rest of the Disney family. In 2002, Starz picked up the pay television rights to Disney's animated films, which previously bypassed a pay television window.
In January 1997, Starz secured a licensing agreement with Paramount Pictures, broadcasting over 300 titles. Paramount Pictures' 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
A boomerang () is a thrown tool typically constructed with airfoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight, designed to return to the thrower. The origin of the word is from Australian Aborigin ...
''.
The first-run film output agreement with
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures is an American film distributor within the Disney Entertainment division of the Walt Disney Company. It handles theatrical and occasional digital distribution, marketing, and promotion for films produced and ...
expired after December 2015, with
Netflix
Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
assuming pay television rights in January 2016 (excluding films released by Touchstone Pictures, which were retained by Starz through a separate contract).
Through at least the first half of 2016, Starz provided Disney films that were released before the expiration, such as ''
Inside Out'' and ''
The Good Dinosaur'', but none released after, such as ''
Zootopia''.
The first-run film output agreement with Sony was renewed for nine years on February 11, 2013 and expired at the end of 2021. 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.
The Warren Miller output deal was renewed for 10 years on October 19, 2009, and the deal ended in 2019.
Television series
Original programming
Starz expanded its program offerings to include some original television series by the late 1990s, with five entertainment news programs and shows that focused on the making of upcoming or current feature films (such as ''Starz Movie News'' and ''Hollywood One on One''); some of these programs were also aired on Encore. These shows and documentaries were produced under the name Starz Encore Entertainment, which was formed in 1999. In 2005, Starz began expanding its original programming slate in order to compete with rivals Showtime and HBO, with the inclusion of scripted series. Starz Encore Entertainment was renamed Starz Originals. Some of the initial series (such as ''
Kung Faux
''Kung Faux'' is an international action comedy television series and audiovisual art assemblage created by Mic Neumann, an American creator–developer showrunner, conceptual artist and multimedia entrepreneur, who remixes classic kung fu fil ...
'', ''
The Bronx Bunny Show'' and ''
Head Case'') maintained running times considered unconventional for a live-action series, usually running under 15 minutes in length; half-hour and hour-long series were eventually incorporated on the schedule by 2010 (including shows such as ''
Spartacus
Spartacus (; ) was a Thracians, Thracian gladiator (Thraex) who was one of the Slavery in ancient Rome, escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major Slave rebellion, slave uprising against the Roman Republic.
Historical accounts o ...
,
Torchwood: Miracle Day'' in 2011, ''
Boss'' and ''
Da Vinci's Demons
''Da Vinci's Demons'' is a historical fantasy drama television series that presents a fictional account of Leonardo da Vinci's early life. The series was conceived by David S. Goyer and stars Tom Riley in the title role. It was developed and ...
'').
The number of original series that debuted each year on Starz has varied, reaching a high of four series during the 2011 calendar year. In 2013, Starz gave a series order to ''
Outlander'', a drama based on the
''Outlander'' book series by
Diana Gabaldon. The project, from ''
Battlestar Galactica
''Battlestar Galactica'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Glen A. Larson. It began with the original television series in 1978, and was followed by a short-run sequel series, '' Galactica 1980'', a line of book adaptat ...
'' developer
Ronald D. Moore and
Sony Pictures Television
Sony Pictures Television Inc. (abbreviated as SPT) is an American television production company, production and broadcast syndication, distribution studio. Based at the Sony Pictures Studios complex in Culver City, California, it is a division o ...
, received a 16-episode order, with production beginning in
Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
(where the books are set) in October 2013. ''Outlander'' has received five nominations for the 2015
Women's Image Network Awards, including a nomination in the Drama Series category. Caitriona Balfe, who plays the leading character in the show, also received a nomination in the Actress Drama Series category.
After Starz's 2016 acquisition by
Lionsgate Lions Gate, Lion Gate or similar terms may refer to:
Gates
*Lion Gate at Mycenae in Greece
*Lion Gate, one of the entrances to the ancient Hittite city of Hattusa, now in Turkey
*Lion Gate, one of the entrances to the gardens of Hampton Court Pala ...
, the network has moved to produce more original content, with president of programming Carmi Zlotnik calling Starz a "content pump" for Lionsgate.
Acquired programming
Multiplex channel Starz Kids & Family also features some series programming, which are aimed at young children and pre-teens. That channel runs two program blocks: "Building Blocks", a block airing on Monday through Saturday mornings that features animated series (such as ''
Dragon Hunters'', ''
Gawayn'', ''
Zombie Hotel'', ''
Savage Family Wild'' and ''
Matt's Monsters'') and the "Six Block" (originally titled "Camp Block" from its launch in March 2011 until the two-hour block was moved from mid-afternoon slots varying on the film schedule to a set timeslot of 6:00 pm Eastern Time in January 2012), a teenage-focused block airing weekday afternoons that features mainly imported series from English-speaking countries outside of America like Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom (such as ''
Wingin' It'',
''
Genie in the House'', ''
Majority Rules'' and ''
Sadie J''). The two blocks are similar to those seen on sister channel Encore's multiplex channel
Encore Wam between 1994 and 2009.
Other ventures
Starz Entertainment has expanded considerably with the presence of its Starz and Encore family of multiplex networks, as well as ventures into television and film production, and home video distribution.
* In 1994, Starz launched the in-house company Starz Pictures, a production company that produced made-for-cable films for the television channel; Starz Pictures' only major film project was the 2002 telefilm ''
Joe and Max''. Starz Pictures shut down that same year.
* In 2006, Liberty Media purchased
IDT Entertainment, which was merged into Starz Entertainment and renamed
Starz Media. As a result of the purchase, Starz acquired IDT subsidiaries Anchor Bay Entertainment, Digital Production Solutions (DPS), and New Arc Entertainment.
The Weinstein Company
The Weinstein Company, LLC (usually credited or abbreviated as TWC) was an American independent film production and distribution company, which was founded in New York City by Bob and Harvey Weinstein on March 10, 2005. TWC was one of the larg ...
, a film studio run by former Miramax heads
Bob and
Harvey Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein (, ; born March 19, 1952) is an American film producer and convicted sex offender. In 1979, Weinstein and his brother, Bob Weinstein, co-founded the entertainment company Miramax, which produced several successful independent ...
, purchased a 25% stake in Starz Media (but not the Starz parent company) on January 4, 2011, with Anchor Bay entering into a multi-year domestic distribution agreement of theatrical feature films released by The Weinstein Company and its
Dimension Films
Dimension Films was an American independent film and television production and distribution label founded in 1992, and currently owned by independent studio Lantern Entertainment. Formally one of the American " mini-majors" (i.e., small to m ...
subsidiary.
* In November 2006,
Chris McGurk and Danny Rosett launched
Overture Films, an independent movie studio that Liberty Media operated out of its Starz Entertainment division. After a proposed sale of the company failed to materialize through the absence of willing buyers, the studio was shut down in October 2010, with its marketing and distribution operations handed over to
Relativity Media
Relativity Media, LLC is an American independent media company founded in 2004 by Lynwood Spinks and Ryan Kavanaugh. The company brokered film finance deals and later branched into film production and other entertainment ventures. The company ...
; Overture's small library of less than 20 films continued to be distributed by Anchor Bay Entertainment for DVD release and by Starz for television broadcast.
* As part of IDT Entertainment's purchase by Liberty Media, Starz Entertainment also acquired two animation studios: Toronto-based IDT Entertainment animation studio (formerly DKP Studios), which was renamed
Starz Animation, and
Manga Entertainment
Manga Entertainment was a producer, licensee, and distributor of anime in the United States and the United Kingdom. Originally founded in the UK in 1991, the UK branch became Funimation UK and Ireland in 2021, also currently known as Crunchyr ...
, an international distributor of Japanese animation. Another animation studio that was also acquired due to the IDT purchase, Film Roman, was sold in October 2010 to a production company owned by a group of investors led by former Film Roman studio president Scott Greenberg called Bento Box Entertainment.
Branding
Starz's logo has incorporated a star in some form since its launch. In the original logo that was used from its launch in February 1994 until March 27, 2005, the star was composed of a two silhouettes (one star cut out from another, larger one), and a 1930s movie-styled "STARZ!" text. The original accompanying graphics were set around a CGI movie theater, with the main network ID featuring seats that opened by themselves, various theater imagery and even images resembling the
Caduceus
The caduceus (☤; ; , ) is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology and consequently by Hermes Trismegistus in Greco-Egyptian mythology. The same staff was borne by other heralds like Iris (mythology), Iris, the messenger of Hera. The s ...
, while feature presentation bumpers heavily used the movie theater themes (using spotlights and film canisters) and the "Encore 8" branding. The "theater" branding used since Starz's launch was replaced in May 2002, with a new graphics package based around natural themes (particularly water). A seven-note fanfare was also introduced as a musical motif, however the new look did not carry over to the multiplex channels. Starz! also introduced the "InfoBar", a lower-third banner graphic that appears on-screen during promotional breaks and during the
end credits of films seen on the channel, originally purposed to promote upcoming programs.
The 1994 logo was replaced in March 2005 with an abstract star shooting upwards and a more modern "starz" wordmark in
Helvetica Neue. This was part of a major rebrand of the network
that included a blue liquid standardized graphics package with a different color such as grey, red, green, purple, and orange for each multiplex channel; the fanfare from the previous graphics package was also re-orchestrated by Mixology Post. The "InfoBar" also began to be used to promote events on the other Starz networks and to provide entertainment news headlines supplied by ''
Variety'' (a similar version was adopted for use by the Encore networks). That year, Starz introduced an opaque on-screen logo bug on the lower-right corner of the screen, appearing for two minutes each half-hour of the movie. Starting in Summer 2007, the 2005 logo bug for every Starz, Encore and Movieplex channel appears throughout the whole movie, until Starz reverted every screenbug back to appearing for two minutes every half hour during the April 2008 rebrand, except for Encore, Movieplex, and Starz Cinema. The introduction of the Starz on-screen logo bugs was cited by former Starz president Tom Southwick due to a large number of subscribers not knowing which of the channels they were watching when they tuned in, particularly if started viewing one of the channels after the start of a film.
The logo was changed in April 2008, with a new "starz" wordmark in a different font, with a star shining between the "a" and "r". It was introduced in black, but the coloring of the logo was modified to an orange/gold gradient in April 2011. The channel replaced the opaque on-screen logo bugs with a white logo bug on all channels and a bright orange bug for Starz HD as of April 7, 2008, and Starz Kids & Family's HD simulcast feed in July 2011. After the 2011 rebrand, the white logo bug for every Starz channel stayed on-screen throughout the whole movie again until the 2013 rebrand, when it reverted to two-minutes every half hour, also applying to Encore channels. After this logo's introduction, the "InfoBar" switched back to promoting programming only on the main Starz channel, but it served as a network ID on some of its multiplex channels.
In 2016, Starz redesigned its logo again, with a new uppercase "STARZ" wordmark in black. When it appeared on-screen, it was white against a black background.
In 2022, following the renaming of StarzPlay to Lionsgate+, Starz got a new logo, with a bolder teal wordmark, which appears in a yellow-sky blue gradient on-screen.
Network slogans
* ''Starz More of What You Want for Less'' (1994–???)
* ''Only on Starz and No Other Movie Channel'' (early February 1994–August 1995)
* ''Starz! – Big Movies and More'' (September 1, 1995–late October 1998)
* ''100% Movies'' (November 1, 1998–late August 1999)
* ''Movies, Movies, New Hit Movies'' (September 1, 1999–early September 2000)
* ''#1 in New Hit Movies'' (September 18, 2000–late December 2004)
* ''An Influx of Movies – Only on Starz'' (early January 2005–late March 2008)
* ''Are You Ready?'' (April 2008–late August 2012)
* ''Taking You Places'' (September 2012–March 2016)
* ''Obsessable'' (April 2016–September 2022)
* ''Just You Watch'' (September 2022–present)
* ''We're All Adults Here'' (July 2024 – present, secondary)
See also
*
PRISM (TV channel)
PRISM (Philadelphia Regional In-home Sports and Movies) was an American regional premium cable television channel in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Launched in September 1976, PRISM was primarily distributed through area cable systems, alth ...
References
External links
*
Starz Media corporate website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Starz
2016 mergers and acquisitions
Commercial-free television networks
Companies based in Meridian, Colorado
Former Liberty Media subsidiaries
Movie channels in the United States
Starz Entertainment
Television channels and stations established in 1994
Television networks in the United States