{"id":654602,"date":"2026-05-07T21:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T21:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/654602\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T21:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T21:57:09","slug":"starz-q1-mixed-as-it-marks-first-year-as-standalone-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/654602\/","title":{"rendered":"Starz Q1 Mixed As It Marks First Year As Standalone Company"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/starz\/\" id=\"auto-tag_starz\" data-tag=\"starz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Starz<\/a> posted a mixed first quarter as it celebrated one year as a standalone company <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2025\/05\/lionsgate-completes-split-of-studios-starz-standalone-companies-1236388163\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">after separating from Lionsgate.<\/a> It continues to juggle OTT and linear as it fine tunes programming including with new owned originals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe stock has surged this year. It popped after the numbers, up more than 3% in late trading at $20.80.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tStarz, following Netflix and others, is no longer reporting quarterly subscriber numbers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\t\u201cAs we mark the one-year anniversary of our separation today, I\u2019m proud to report that Starz is a structurally stronger company than when we separated,\u201d said CEO Jeffrey Hirsch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tTotal revenue fell 7% to $307 million but was slightly ahead of forecasts on higher than anticipated OTT revenue of $211 million (from $225 million). Linear revenue fell to $96 million (from $105 million).<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tNet losses widened to $165 million from $154 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tHigher adjusted ebitda (<a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/earnings\/\" id=\"auto-tag_earnings\" data-tag=\"earnings\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">earnings<\/a> before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $58 million and equity free cash flow of $69 million, surpassed Wall Street forecasts. Starz also pulled forward its guidance of 20% margins by a year (to 2027 from 2028).<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\t\u201cOver the past year,\u201d said Hirsch, \u201cwe have executed with discipline against our strategic and financial priorities to position the company for long-term value creation, and we delivered a strong start to the year, meeting or exceeding all of our key financial targets. Given our progress and one of our strongest content lineups we\u2019ve had in years, we are increasingly confident in our ability to drive OTT revenue growth, reduce leverage, expand margins, and generate sustainable free cash flow in the years ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe home of Raising Kanan, Outlander: Blood of My Blood and P-Valley, recently announced a July 31 premiere date for its first owned original series, Fightland. It is moving ahead with a second, an untitled Black rodeo show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tManagement is hosting a call at 5 pm ET.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tMore to come<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starz posted a mixed first quarter as it celebrated one year as a standalone company after separating from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,16326,75,25271,348],"class_list":["post-654602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-earnings","tag-entertainment","tag-starz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}