Having split from Lionsgate, Starz released its third quarter financials on Thursday, with revenue down on a widened net loss.
Starz saw overall revenue fall to $321 million, down from a year-earlier revenue at $347 million. The standalone company recorded a widened operating loss at $34.8 million, against a year-earlier operating loss of $17 million. The net loss for the latest quarter was $52.6 million, compared to a year-earlier net loss of $30.6 million.
The company posted streaming revenue at $222.8 million, against a year-earlier $232.2 million. And linear and other revenue came to $98.1 million, compared to $114.7 million in the year-earlier period.
Starz’ OTT service added 110,000 subscribers in the third quarter to get to 12.29 million customers in all, compared to the 120,000 customers shed during the second quarter of 2025. The company ended the latest financial period with 19.2 million total subscribers, up from 19.08 million in the prior second quarter, due to the growth in OTT streaming customers. Total U.S. subscribers were 17.46 million, down 130,000 from the recent second quarter.
“Starz reported a great quarter both operationally and financially, and we expect to continue our momentum to close out 2025,” Starz president and CEO Jeffrey Hirsch said in a statement that accompanied his latest financial results.
“It’s been just six months since we became a standalone public company, and we are set to deliver on our post-separation plan of generating new revenue through content licensing and getting more ownership of series on the network at improved economics. With an incredibly strong slate of originals airing on Starz over the next year, we have a great opportunity to further scale our core audience of women and underrepresented audiences, while also delivering significant value for shareholders,” he added.
Starz execs told analysts after the release of the second quarter results in August that they anticipated growth in both subscribers and revenues in the back half of the year.
During an after-market close analyst call, Hirsch outlined post-spinoff structural changes at Starz. That includes modifying its Canadian operation by replacing a joint venture model with Bell Canada with a content licensing agreement. That will lead to Starz no longer reporting Canadian subscriber numbers going forward.
“It was a unique deal where we had three partners in that deal, so it was incredibly hard for us to do what we do here in the U.S. in terms of managing the consumer acquisition, retention and all of the different lifecycle management,” Hirsch argued. Starz is also in talks to bring on a commissioning partner for the original Fightland from Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson to improve the economics of the series.