Starz, fresh off its separation from former parent company Lionsgate, reported results for the first three months of the year.
For the quarter, which was the company’s Q4 of fiscal 2025, Starz reported total revenue of $330.6 million, down 6.2%, and an operating loss of $136.3 million (compared with an operating loss of $30.8 million). Starz gained 470,000 streaming subscribers in the period, to reach 13.04 million overall — while total subscribers fell 330,000 because of the loss of a Starz linear TV carriage agreement in Canada.
The company’s results include a restructuring charge of $177.4 million, including $167.7 million for “content and other impairments” that the company said was “related to a strategic reassessment of the company’s content portfolio.” The initiative is “part of Starz’s broader effort to align its operations and cost structure as a newly independent, standalone public company,” it said. Starz also recorded $1.7 million in severance costs and $8 million in transaction-related costs for the March 2025 quarter.
For fiscal year 2025, Starz touted its $201.5 million in adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization, beating its target of $200 million.
The Starz report comes after it officially separated from Lionsgate after a three-year process on May 7, when the Starz stock began trading on the Nasdaq under the symbol “STRZ.” Starz said that given the recent separation from Lionsgate it will not report earnings per share for its fiscal Q4 of 2025. The company will initiate EPS reporting with the quarter ending June 30, 2025. In addition, Starz said, it has adopted a change in its fiscal year end from March 31 to Dec. 31.
On the “business update” call with analysts, Starz CEO Jeffrey Hirsch said a key priority for the company now that it has split from Lionsgate is to “commence rebuilding our library and reclaim ownership economics, enhance cost efficiency and create new revenue streams,” with “no incremental overhead cost to the business.” The goal is to have almost half of its calendar year 2027 slate being owned and controlled by Starz, he said.
After spending about $800 million on content the past two years, Starz is targeting about $700 million in cash content spending in calendar 2026 with the ultimate goal of getting it down to about $650 million “over the next couple years,” CFO Scott Macdonald said on the call.
At the time of separation from Lionsgate, Starz had net debt of $559.1 million. That comprised debt of $300 million under its new Term Loan A facility and $325.1 million in senior unsecured notes that remained with the company, offset by $66 million in cash. On a trailing 12-month basis, the company’s total debt-to-equity ratio was 3.1x.
The Starz Networks segment ended the March quarter with 12.3 million U.S. streaming subscribers, representing sequential growth of 530,000. Total U.S. subscribers (including linear) reached 18.0 million, an increase of 320,000 from the prior quarter, primarily driven by the late-quarter premiere of original series “Power Book III: Raising Kanan” Season 4 (pictured above). According to the company, customer acquisition for the show’s premiere week was 50% and 30% higher than Seasons 2 and 3, respectively.
Starz’s total North American subscribers were 19.6 million, reflecting a sequential decline of 330,000. The decline was largely due to a “carriage dispute in Canada that resulted in the removal of the Starz-branded linear channel from a distributor’s programming packages,” the company said.
On the call, Hirsch said “we are confident that we will continue to drive OTT subscriber growth in calendar ’25” and that the company expects to return to positive revenue growth sequentially in the second half of the year.
“As we move into the year, our slate of five big tentpoles including the ‘Outlander’ prequel ‘Blood of My Blood,’ the return of ‘Spartacus’ after 12 years, a strong lineup of proven hits like ‘BMF’ and our ‘Power’ spinoffs coupled with a strong lineup of output titles from Lionsgate and Universal, gives us great confidence in our subscriber and revenue trajectory,” Hirsch said.
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