Starz Inc. is an American entertainment company and a subsidiary of

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 ...

. It is headquartered in Meridian, Colorado, but uses nearby Englewood as its location in corporate filings and press releases. The company owns and operates

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 ...

channels Channel, channels, channeling, etc., may refer to: Geography * Channel (geography), a landform consisting of the outline (banks) of the path of a narrow body of water. Australia * Channel Country, region of outback Australia in Queensland and pa ...

, including its namesake service, sibling networks

Starz Encore Starz Encore is an American premium television channel owned by Starz Inc., a subsidiary of Starz Entertainment Corp. (a namesake of the network) and headquartered at the Meridian International Business Center complex in Meridian, Colorad ...

and MoviePlex.

History

Early history

Encore Movie Group was founded in 1991 as a wholly owned television programming subsidiary and a joint venture of

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 ...

and Tele-Communications Inc., two companies that were controlled by John C. Malone. The premium channel Encore was launched in 1991 on cable systems operated by Tele-Communications Inc., followed by the launch of

Starz Starz (stylized in all caps as STARZ; pronounced "stars") is an American pay television network owned by Starz Entertainment, and is the flagship property of Starz Inc. Launched in 1994 as a multiplex service of what is now Starz Encore, ...

in 1994, and Encore Plex (now MoviePlex) in 1997. In 1994, Encore Movie Group was renamed Encore Media Corporation. On June 2, 1997, TCI announced it would transfer part of its ownership stake in Encore Media Corporation to sister company Liberty Media, due in part to substantial losses incurred by the Starz network. TCI retained a minority 20% ownership interest in Encore Media Corporation, renamed Encore Media Group in 1998, until Liberty Media acquired TCI's stake following its 1999 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 ...

and assumed full ownership of the Encore Media Group. In 1999, Encore Media Group was renamed the Starz Encore Media Group; "Media" was dropped off in 2001, becoming Starz Encore Group. The company also launched a film and documentary production division, Starz Encore Entertainment. As part of a corporate restructuring in 2003, Starz Encore Group eliminated 100 jobs in its nine regional offices, four of which have been closed. On March 25, 2005, Starz Encore Group was renamed Starz Entertainment Group (also known as Starz Entertainment, LLC), and on March 28, the Starz! network was renamed Starz (dropping the exclamation point) and adopted a new logo featuring a hand-drawn star and a wordmark set in Helvetica Neue Black.

As Starz Media

On August 31, 2006, Liberty Media acquired the US division of IDT Entertainment for $186 million, followed by the Canadian and Australian divisions on September 29, 2006. IDT Entertainment was then merged under Starz Entertainment Group and renamed Starz Media. The company soon expanded into film production by launching Overture Films in 2006, followed by arthouse label Anchor Bay Films in 2008. On November 19, 2009, Liberty Media spun off Starz Entertainment Group into a separate tracking stock, known as Liberty Starz. On January 1, 2010, Chris Albrecht became the president and

CEO 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 ...

of Liberty Starz, overseeing the company's 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 January 4, 2011,

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 ...

(TWC) acquired 25% of Starz Media, one of the operating units of Liberty Starz. The arrangement included a five-year distribution deal under which starting in April 2011, Liberty Starz's

would release new TWC films on DVD and Starz Digital Media would handle online downloads and streaming. On August 8, 2012, Liberty Media announced that it would spin-off Liberty Starz into a separate public company; the transaction includes about $1.5 billion of debt. The spin-off of the subsidiary was expected to be completed by the end of 2012, but was actually completed on January 11, 2013. As a result of the spin-off, Liberty Starz changed its name to Starz Inc., began trading on

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

under the ticker symbols STRZA and STRZB, and replaced Liberty Media in the

NASDAQ-100 The Nasdaq-100 (NDX) is a stock market index made up of equity securities issued by 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. It is a modified capitalization-weighted index. The stocks' weights in the inde ...

index. Starz Inc.'s businesses and assets at the time consisted of Starz Networks, Starz Distribution, and its minority stake in Arc Productions. Starz was later replaced in the NASDAQ-100 index by

Kraft Foods Kraft Foods Group, Inc. was an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate (company), conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. on October 1, 2012, and was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz on July ...

on March 18, 2013.

Acquisition by Lionsgate

On February 11, 2015, John C. Malone, the majority shareholder in both Starz and its former parent company Liberty Media, swapped a 4.5% stake with 14.5% of the voting power in Starz Inc. for 3.4% of shares in film and television entertainment company

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 ...

while joining the company's board of directors.Lionsgate, Starz Swap Stock as John Malone Joins Board
Brent Lang variety.com February 11, 2015. Retrieved February 26, 2015 Fourteen days later, Starz CEO Chris Albrecht hinted a possible merger with Lionsgate.
Jeff Berman thestreet.com February 25, 2015. Retrieved February 26, 2015 On November 10, 2015, Malone's two other companies,

Liberty Global Liberty Global Ltd. is a British-Dutch-American multinational telecommunications company domiciled in Bermuda, with headquarters in London, Amsterdam and Denver. Its respective legal names are Liberty Global Holdings Limited (UK), Liberty Glo ...

and

Discovery Communications Discovery, Inc. was an American multinational mass media factual television conglomerate based in New York City. Established in 1982, the company operated a group of factual and lifestyle television brands, such as the namesake Discovery Cha ...

, made a joint investment of $195–400 million in Lionsgate and acquired a 3.4% stake in the company. On June 30, 2016, Lionsgate agreed to acquire Starz Inc. for $4.4 billion in cash and stock. As part of the acquisition by Lionsgate, Starz Inc.'s home entertainment business have been subsumed into Lionsgate's Worldwide Home Entertainment division, as well as Starz Inc.'s Worldwide TV distribution group being similarly combined. On December 8, 2016, the deal was finalized thus making Starz a subsidiary of Lionsgate. In August 2023, Lionsgate announced it would be exiting Latin America before spinning off Starz into its own company. In November 2023, Lionsgate announced the spinoff of its film and television assets into its own separate publicly-traded company. The new company,

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 ...

, would be founded on May 14, 2024. As a result, Lionsgate announced that Starz would be laying off 10% of its work force, and exiting the television markets in both the UK and Australia by the end of 2023. In 2024, Lionsgate would change its name to

to distinguish itself from Lionsgate Studios.

Starz Networks

The Starz Networks division currently consists of 3 premium cable networks and their various

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 * ...

channels; 17 channels collectively. * MoviePlex ** MoviePlex ** IndiePlex ** RetroPlex *

** Starz ** Starz Cinema ** Starz Comedy ** Starz Edge ** Starz in Black ** Starz Kids & Family *

** Starz Encore ** Starz Encore Action ** Starz Encore Black ** Starz Encore Classic ** Starz Encore Español ** Starz Encore Family ** Starz Encore Suspense ** Starz Encore Westerns

References

External links

*
About Us Page
{{Lions Gate Entertainment Starz Entertainment Former Liberty Media subsidiaries American companies established in 1991 Entertainment companies established in 1991 Mass media companies established in 1991 Entertainment companies of the United States Mass media companies of the United States Companies based in Meridian, Colorado 2016 mergers and acquisitions