History
Starz! was launched on February 1, 1994 at 8 p.m. ET, primarily on TCI cable systems (both it and Liberty Media were controlled by John Malone); the first two movies ever aired on the channel were both dramas released in 1992: Scent of a Woman, starring Al Pacino and The Crying Game, respectively. Starz! originally carried the "Encore 8" moniker, as it was launched as part of the Encore thematic multiplex, the multiplex was to have been only six channels prior to a deal in 1993 in which Encore acquired the pay cable rights to telecast recent feature films released by Universal Pictures after 1993.
While at launch, its cable coverage was mainly limited to TCI systems, Starz's carriage later expanded to more than 90% of all American cable systems in the United States by the beginning years of the first decade of the 21st century. The channel focused more on recent hit movies than sister channel Encore, which originally aired movies made primarily in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s before adding recent fare as well in July 1999. Besides rights to Universal Pictures films, Starz also initially had rights to films released by Carolco Pictures, Fine Line Features and its sibling New Line Cinema, and Disney-owned Miramax, Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures (although films from those studios did not begin to be carried on Starz! until 1997, after the studio's output deal with Showtime ended). Films that contained graphic sexual or violent content would also be scheduled in the late evening and overnight hours.
Within two years of the channel's launch, Starz began being separated from the Encore brand (though the "Encore 8" moniker remained in use until 2002) and Starz began launching its own multiplex channels: Starz! 2 (launched 1996, renamed Starz! Theater in 1999 and Starz Edge in 2005), BET Movies: Starz! 3 (launched 1997, renamed Black Starz! in 2001 after BET came under common ownership with Showtime, and renamed Starz inBlack in 2005), Starz! Cinema (launched 1999), Starz! Family (launched in 2000), and Starz! Kids (launched 2004). Starz! Family and Starz! Kids later merged into Starz Kids & Family in 2005, with Starz Comedy taking Starz! Kids's channel space at the same time. A high-definition simulcast feed was launched in 2004. It was not until September 1995, that Starz! signed its first affiliation agreement with a major multiple system operator other than TCI, when it signed a deal with Continental Cablevision. By 1996, Starz! had an estimated total of 2.8 million subscribers, only one million of which subscribers to another cable provider or satellite.
By 1997, Starz! had lost $150 million in revenue and was predicted to lose an additional estimated $300 million in revenue before its cash flow broke even. On June 2, 1997, TCI announced a deal in which it would transfer majority ownership of Starz to sister company Liberty Media, with TCI retaining a minority 20% ownership; the corporate entity behind Starz and Encore was renamed Encore Media Group (which was renamed the Starz Encore Media Group in 2000, and then to Starz Entertainment in 2005), which operated the seven Encore multiplex networks. By May 1998, Starz! increased its subscriber base to 7.6 million homes.
In 2003, Starz Encore Group eliminated 100 jobs at its regional offices and closed four of the nine regional offices it operated, as part of a restructuring plan for the company. On November 19, 2009 Liberty Media spun off Starz and Encore into a new company named Liberty Starz. On January 1, 2010, former HBO President Chris Albrecht joined Starz, LLC as its President and CEO. He will oversee all of the Starz entities, including Starz Entertainment, Overture Films, Anchor Bay Entertainment and Film Roman.
While sister channel Encore is separate from Starz, cable providers usually offer the Encore services on a separate digital cable tier from Starz and some cable systems do not sell and bundle Encore separately from Starz. Starz and Encore were the first major premium channel competitors since The Movie Channel and Cinemax launched in 1979 and 1980, respectively; as other premium channels that existed before the launch of the Starz and Encore channels including Home Theater Network and Spotlight were unable to compete against HBO and Showtime, and their aforementioned respective sister premium channels. Unlike HBO and Showtime, the Starz channels neither have international premium channels nor have international cable channels that license the Starz or Encore brands.
Read more about this topic: Starz (TV Channel)
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