{"id":780509,"date":"2026-05-07T21:38:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T21:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/780509\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T21:38:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T21:38:15","slug":"starz-exits-universal-output-deal-as-it-revisits-content-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/780509\/","title":{"rendered":"Starz Exits Universal Output Deal As It Revisits Content Costs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tStarz<\/a> CEO Jeff Hirsch<\/a> said the company has exited its output deal with Universal<\/a> as it revisits content costs a year into its run as a standalone.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cToday, we are announcing that we have exited our Pay 2 agreement with Universal. The Universal titles, which we originally planned to air through calendar 28, are incredibly popular and bring with them tremendous box office strength,\u201d he said on a call after earnings, noting that due to high subscriber overlap between Amazon and STARZ, \u201cthese titles are heavily watched before they come to us in the Pay 2 window.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUniversal splits its pay-1 licensing deal between Amazon and Peacock.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis unique dynamic with Amazon has resulted in lower viewership than we originally projected. In order to replace the revenue component of the Pay 2, we will reinvest and acquire high-performing titles at superior economics. We are thankful to our partners at Universal for working with us to find a mutually beneficial solution,\u201d Hirsch said.<\/p>\n

\n\tStarz wants to hit a 20% margin target, which, Hirsch said, requires \u201cright-sizing\u201d the content cost structure of the business. The Universal agreement moves that goal forward a year to the back half of 2027 instead of the end of 2028. <\/p>\n

\n\tCFO Scott MacDonald said the company will record a restructuring charge (not specified) for the current second quarter for exiting the deal. The revised terms \u201cmeaningfully improve our cash payment obligations, creating a significant reduction in cash content spend beginning in 2027,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tStarz reported a $139 million charge in the first quarter as part of efforts to streamline content costs.<\/p>\n

\n\tHirsch also weighed in on deals. He\u2019s discussed M&A in the past but was a bit more explicit on the call today. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe continue to see two paths for value creation for the STARZ business. First, our focus has been growing the core business to achieve the 20% margin guide. Second, we believe there is an additional path to growth through potential M&A opportunities,\u201d Hirsch said. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOur approach to M&A remains disciplined. Any strategic initiative must be complementary and additive to our core audience, must fit within an acceptable leverage parameter, and create clear and identifiable value for our shareholders. But given the strength and the profitability of our core business, we do not need M&A to maximize shareholder value,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\n\tMore to come<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starz CEO Jeff Hirsch said the company has exited its output deal with Universal as it revisits content…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":780510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[171,283465,55603,173,67,132,941,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-780509","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-jeff-hirsch","10":"tag-starz","11":"tag-tv","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-universal","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116535460326422529","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}