{"id":535799,"date":"2026-03-21T01:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T01:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/535799\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T01:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T01:19:09","slug":"starz-lays-off-7-of-staff-10-months-after-separation-from-lionsgate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/535799\/","title":{"rendered":"Starz Lays Off 7% Of Staff 10 Months After Separation From Lionsgate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE: In\u00a0Starz<\/a>\u2018s Q4 earnings report in February, the company called 2026 a \u201cpositive financial inflection point,\u201d\u00a0saying it would focus on profitability and generating positive free cash flow\u00a0after its separation from\u00a0Lionsgate<\/a>. In addition to OTT subscriber growth and increasing content ownership, cost-reduction inevitably is part of the equation. That includes staff cuts.<\/p>\n

\n\tStarz<\/a> underwent a round of layoffs<\/a> Friday that impacted 7% of the company\u2019s employees, Deadline has learned. The move, which is believed to involve a reorg, comes 10 months after newly public Starz, run by President and CEO Jeff Hirsch<\/a>, separated from Lionsgate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs reported in February, Starz reached 17.6 million total U.S. subscribers as of Q4 2025, a gain of 170,000, driven by 12.7 million OTT subscribers. The company reported a Q4 net loss of $20.7 million, narrowing its losses post-separation from Lionsgate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c2025 was a very successful year, one in which we exceeded all of our financial guidance,\u201d Hirsch said on the earnings call. \u201cIt\u2019s a feat we\u2019re especially proud of amidst the pressures you see happening across the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tStarz previously laid off 10% of the company staf<\/a>f in 2023 in preparation for the separation from Lionsgate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: In\u00a0Starz\u2018s Q4 earnings report in February, the company called 2026 a \u201cpositive financial inflection point,\u201d\u00a0saying it would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,240330,2539,14968,50738,92],"class_list":["post-535799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-jeff-hirsch","tag-layoffs","tag-lionsgate","tag-starz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}