Starz CEO Jeff Hirsch, in his first solo outing as head of a newly stand-alone publicly traded company, sketched out an era of lower costs, ownership of shows, more bundling and deals with networks that are stuck in the linear space.Starz, over its years with Lionsgate, has transitioned to a primarily digital, subscription-based service with no linear advertising exposure.On a call with analysts after releasing a set of preliminary financial results for the March quarter, Hirsch said Starz will transition to owning half of its slate in 2027. It will reduce content spending from $700 million in 2026 to more like $650 million by 2028 as it leverages international sales and turns to younger shows, which cost considerably less in early seasons than later ones. It aims to produce eight to 10 original series a year, balancing its owned shows with acquisitions and licensed fare.As Deadline reported, Starz is opening new writers rooms “of shows that we’re really excited about that we’ll own,” he said.“It takes a little while from development to getting shows on air. It’s a lot of tough work to get these shows to be performers as we’ve seen with the likes of the Power franchise and Outlander” but “coming into 2027, half of the slate will be ours … and we’ll continue to add into that.”“There’s a large content savings by controlling your IP,” he said.The company, which will continue to position itself as a niche streamer, has joined a handful of bundles and will add more. Bundling reduced churn with a retention rate of 20% for bundled customers, execs noted.Starz and Lionsgate officially split earlier this month, a transaction years in the making. The idea was to give each piece of the business room to focus and grow, and in the process hopefully create value – meaning a higher share price – for stockholders. Both are now smaller companies that could be acquired or, as Hirsch implied, swoop in to build something bigger.“I’m not going to get into a lot of detail on M&A at this point,” he said, asked about it on the call. But the split certainly “allows us flexibility to go build … We do think there’s opportunities for us in terms of partnerships with other brands that are marooned on the linear side that would like to get into the digital side, whether it’s a commercial deal, or what have you.”The push would be to bring together “brands that are focused on women and underrepresented audiences [Starz’s core audiences] with different types of content and grow the business together that way.”
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