Lionsgate released its quarterly earnings report on Thursday, Feb. 9, and its balance sheet held mixed results for its linear cable network and subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service STARZ. The report indicates that STARZ lost 600,000 users in the company’s fiscal third quarter of 2023, and now has 37.2 million global users.
Domestically, STARZ tallied 11.6 million users, down from the 12.3 million it reported in its most recent report in November. When removing the linear Starz network from the equation, the STARZ SVOD service now has 27 million global users, down 300,000 from the previous quarter, but still up 27% year-over-year.
The better news for STARZ, at least according to company executives, is that the service has returned to subscriber growth in the current quarter. Strong subscription numbers are mostly being driven by the new season of “BMF” which debuted on Jan. 6. Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer confirmed during the earnings call that the show has already been greenlit for another season.
Feltheimer also confirmed that the company’s plans to separate STARZ and Lionsgate remain on track. Originally, Lionsgate had planned to keep its movie business and spin off the Starz channel/streaming service to become their own companies that Lionsgate would own a stake in. However, Lionsgate reversed course in September 2022, announcing that Starz would remain in-house while the Lionsgate movie studio would be spun off.
“Our plan to separate Lionsgate and STARZ by the end of September [2023] remains on track,” Feltheimer said in the earnings call. “Separation will give our two core businesses the opportunity to pursue strategic and financial paths that make sense for each of them and unlock greater value by operating as pure-play entities.”
The Lionsgate CEO also announced that the first bundling option for STARZ would be available next week, though he did not provide more specifics. He did note that the company was looking to enhance its profitability as its most important goal, echoing Disney executives from that company’s earnings report earlier this week.
STARZ had a bit of a quiet quarter news-wise, but the service did make a few moves to spread its reach. STARZ recently joined +play, the subscription aggregation service currently in beta testing from Verizon. The service is also now available to users of the live TV streaming service YouTube TV as a bundle with the MGM+ streaming platform.
On the sadder side of news for STARZ fans, the service was one of the streamers which found itself canceling and removing content from its platform last quarter. STARZ removed three series, including one that had previously been greenlit for a second season, from its service in early January.
STARZ
STARZ offers a subscription video streaming service that gives access to content on the STARZ channel without the need of a cable subscription. With your subscription, you’ll get access to 7,500+ films and episodes, including all of their current originals like “Outlander,” The Serpent Queen,” “BMF,” and “Power.”