Starz has promoted global SVOD executive Darren Nielson to the position of executive VP of international networks, replacing departing Starz International Networks president Superna Kalle.

In his new position, Nielson will oversee growth for the division’s newly rebranded international service Lionsgate Plus, formerly Starzplay International. Nielson, who will report to Starz president and CEO Jeffrey Hirsch, will oversee all aspects of programming, distribution, marketing and publicity for the service in the United Kingdom, Latin America and Brazil, Canada and Australia.

In his previous position as executive VP, international business development and partnerships, Nielson had worked with Kalle to develop expansion strategies, identify and evaluate partner opportunities and source and negotiate distribution agreements with in-territory partners. Prior to joining Starz, Nielson served as director of content acquisition at Netflix, helping grow the service from a domestic DVD business into a global leader in streaming video.

Kalle will remain with Starz through March before pursuing new opportunities, said network officials.

“Darren has been instrumental in building our international business working with Superna since joining the company in 2018. He has a deep knowledge of the global streaming landscape and is a respected strategic executive,” Hirsch said in a statement. “We look forward to maximizing growth and profitability of our international markets under his leadership. Superna did a great job in rapidly scaling an international service from the ground up, forming many new distribution partnerships and building a robust slate of international original series. We are grateful for her leadership and dedication to the company and wish her continued success.” ■

Lionsgate-owned premium programmer Starz said its overall viewing is up 35% since March 14, the beginning of pandemic-based shelter-in-place viewing consumption.

Average viewership on the Starz app is up 44%, while usage of the Starz premium cable channel has increased 33%.

Starz CEO Jeffrey Hirsch made the revelation on CNBC over the weekend, where he discussed Starz’s overall strategy. You can see the short interview with Hirsch here. 

Starz, he said, is sold as a “premium add-on,” which “compliments” Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu or any of the “broad-basic” SVOD services that looking to “replace pay TV.”

Rather than being driven by individual hits, Starz is benefitting from a “portfolio approach,” Hirsch said, whereby movies like recent Quentin Tarantino box office smash Once Upon a time in Hollywood compliment tentpole series like Outlander and keep viewers coming back to the platform week after week. 

Also notable: in a direct-to-consumer world in which the Starz app is sold directly to consumers instead of the service being peddled through pay TV operators, Hirsch said, “Starz does become a more profitable company.” 

Hirsch, meanwhile, addressed another common video programming topic amid the pandemic—a shortage of shows caused by production stoppages. He said that since Starz works a year ahead, “most shows that come online this year are already in post production,” and that things like “virtual editing and virtual sound mixing” are doable amid “an unprecedented time for our industry.” 

Lionsgate-owned Starz Wednesday warned of a potential its 17 channels could be dropped by Comcast next month after the MVPD announced an expansion of its deal with Epix.

The expanded deal calls for Comcast to add MGM-owned Epix to to select Comcast Xfinity TV premium packages on Dec. 10 and a newly launched suite of ScreenPix channels on Dec. 12, featuring uncut and commercial free movies channels from the Epix library, including ScreenPix; ScreenPix: Action; ScreenPix: Westerns; and ScreenPix: Voices, a channel dedicated to diverse voices.

To make room for the Epix channels, Starz says Comcast is considering dropping the premium service and related channels from its lineup as of Dec. 11. 

Starz Wednesday released a statement saying that it had been diligently working with Comcast to reach a “fair market distribution agreement with Comcast Xfinity” but the MVPD has ignored “industry precedent and has demonstrated a total disregard for its customers, communities, suppliers and other stakeholders.”

The Starz statement added: “In response, we must now alert our millions of Comcast subscribers that they will soon lose all 17 Starz channels, including Starz and Starz Encore along with our on-demand and online services without receiving any refund from Comcast for the loss of an irreplaceable premium programming lineup.”

Comcast responded that it is “continuing to negotiate to reach a deal with Starz that makes sense for us and our customers before our current deal expires, but we have been unable to do so at this time. Over the last decade, the video marketplace has evolved dramatically, with more and more streaming and direct-to-consumer offerings marketing themselves as an alternative to traditional cable. We have seen the streaming marketplace grow from essentially two services to dozens of significant OTT platforms, with more launching all the time. Starz has chosen to change its business model in response to these trends by making its content available a-la-carte on Amazon Prime and Roku and selling its service direct to the consumer through the Starz app. All we are asking for is the same treatment for our customers.”

Comcast has complained about Starz's distribution strategies before. In 2016 the MVPD objected to the $8.99 per month Starz app, which also doubles as the premium service’s authenticated “TV-everywhere” extension. Comcast has declined to authenticate the Starz app for its subscribers.

Starz also battled with Suddenlink and Optimum parent Altice USA over the app's pricing, leading Altice in 2018 to drop Starz services for five weeks before finally reaching an agreement. 

RELATED: Starz, Altice Reach Carriage Deal 

If dropped, Comcast subscribers would lose access to Starz original series such as Power, currently in its final series run, and Outlander, as well as thousands of movies. Finding a way to resolve the dispute will be a key objective for Starz CEO Jeffrey Hirsch, the former Time Warner Cable executive who was promoted from chief operating officer last month. Lionsgate also has reportedly been exploring a possible spinoff of Starz.

For Epix, the deal offers more distribution for its premium services. “I’m thrilled to welcome this new chapter in Epix’s relationship with Comcast,” Epix president Michael Wright said in a statement. “We have a shared commitment to providing viewers an unmatched experience and are excited for Xfinity TV customers to experience Epix’s lineup of new original series.” 

Pictured: 50 Cent (left) and Starz CEO Jeffrey Hirsch at a Madison Square Garden premiere of Power. Credit: Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Starz.

Starz has promoted former network COO Jeffrey Hirsch to president and CEO, the network said Thursday.

Hirsch, who joined Starz four years ago and was promoted to COO in 2016, will oversee business and programming strategy for Starz. Hirsch, who has been running the network since the March departure of former CEO Chris Albrecht, has overseen the increase of Starz’s domestic subscriber base to 24.7 million from 23.5 million and has continued growing the Starz OTT service, currently at 4.4 million subscribers, according to the network.

RELATED: Starz President/CEO Albrecht is Leaving

Since Lionsgate’s acquisition of Starz in December 2016, Hirsch -- a former Time Warner Cable executive who joined the company in July 2015 as president of global marketing and product development -- has played a lead role in integrating Starz into the Lionsgate family and exploring opportunities for the two companies’ combined suite of OTT offerings, according to the network.

“Jeff continues to lead Starz’s transformation into one of the world’s premier subscription platforms,” said Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer in a statement. “He has a clear strategic vision, great understanding of where our business is headed and strong relationships that will all contribute to Starz’s continued strong growth and evolution.

On the original programming front, Hirsch has already greenlit three new series, including female produced/written shows Dangerous Liaisons, dark comedy Shining Vale and a Power spinoff series starring Mary J. Blige in a lead role. In addition, Hirsch has greenlit a third season of drama series The Girlfriend Experience.

Starz is aggressively bulking up its OTT and on-demand content for families and multicultural viewers with the addition of kids-themed and Spanish-language programming.

The Starz app — which allows the premium network’s subscribers to watch Starz content on mobile or TV-connected devices through an authentication process or purchase Starz for $8.99 per month — has more than doubled its programming offerings to 5,500 original series and acquired titles since launching in spring 2016, Jeff Hirsch, Starz’s chief operating officer, said.

As part of its content push, the network has added more than 1,500 kids-targeted television series and movies, including Care Bears: Adventures in Care-a-lot, The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, Inspector Gadget and Yu-Gi-Oh, Hirsch said.

The kids content complements the network’s adult-targeted shows like Power to provide programming that appeals to everyone in the family.

“Providing a product for the head of household to watch, like Power, but also having great kids programming around it, reinforces the value proposition that we’re trying to give to that consumer,” he said.

In addition, Starz is offering nearly 300 Spanish-language movies and telenovela episodes, including such shows as El Cartel de los Sapos and La Promesa, as part of the network’s continued efforts to reach out to underserved audiences. The network has already announced a number of Hispanic-targeted original projects in development, including drama series Teresa and Pour Vida.

“We’ve made a very conscious decision to focus on underserved audiences in terms of our original programming, with The Girlfriend Experience and Outlander for females and Power, Survivor’s Remorse and to a certain extent American Gods for the African-American audience,” Hirsch said. “Adding telenovelas and movies in preparation for some of our great originals is the proper right step in terms of that programming strategy.”

With “significantly” more than 1 million subscribers signed up for its Starz OTT service, Hirsch said the company is focusing on offering content that will bring more value to consumers.

Starz generated record signups over the past two weeks, coinciding with the launch of the fourth season of Power, Hirsch added, although he would not reveal specifics.

“We think we’ve created a really simple and easy-to-use product with great consumer features at a price that provides great value for the Starz consumer, and the marketplace is reacting to that in a positive way,” Hirsch said.

Starz also hopes to increase its available content by another 40% by year-end to 7,700 titles, with additional acquisition launches including The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss and Jim Henson’s The Storyteller.

Hirsch also addressed Comcast’s ongoing decision not to support the TV Everywhere aspect of the Starz app, saying that the network continues to talk to the operator regarding a solution.

“Comcast are great partners and they see the value of our programming,” Hirsch said. “We continue to have a good partnership and we’ll continue to try to figure out how to work together, not just on the authenticated position but other parts of the business.”

Premium service Starz said it has extended chief operating officer Jeffrey Hirsch’s employment agreement with the company through December 2020.

Hirsch joined Starz in 2015 from Time Warner Cable and was named COO in 2016. In the past 18 months he helped launch Starz new streaming services and its app – which is nearing the 1-million-subscriber mark – rebranded the Starz network and repositioned the Starz Encore suite of services. In December, Apple named the Starz app one of Apple TV’s 10 Best Apps of the Year.  

"We are pleased to extend Jeff's tenure as COO of Starz, providing the company with great continuity as we continue our drive to be a powerhouse global content provider,” Starz CEO Chris Albrecht said in a statement. “In a short time at Starz, he re-energized growth at the company by rebranding the networks and launching one of the best streaming apps in the TV business, firmly securing the network’s position as the second most-subscribed to premium TV network in the U.S.* We look forward to working with him to drive revenue growth, innovation and global strategic opportunities to create long-term value for our shareholders.”

Hirsch continues to be responsible for overseeing Affiliate Sales, Marketing, Programming Operations, Network Scheduling, Content Acquisitions, Research, Starz Distribution and Technology and Product Development.

He joined Starz after more than 15 years at Time Warner Cable, starting with the former cable company in 1999 and serving in various roles, including stints in product development for TWC’s Ipad app, and as president for residential services in the cable operator’s New York, Los Angeles and Rochester, N.Y. regions. He was named EVP and Chief Marketing Officer in 2011, where he remained until leaving for Starz in 2015. Prior to TWC, Hirsch’s worked at NYNEX Corporation in product bundling and McCann-Erickson in advertising.

Starz has promoted Alison Hoffman to the newly created position of chief marketing officer from executive vice president of marketing. It's one of a number of top executive promotions, under recently-renewed CEO Chris Albrecht, in the last few weeks at the premium programmer, which is in the process of being acquired by Lionsgate for $4.4 billion in cash and stock. 

“Alison’s vision and execution has helped reposition Starz as a destination for acclaimed and diverse original programming and build a brand that reflects the strength of our unmatched content offerings,” Jeffrey Hirsch, chief operating officer (a recent promotion) at Starz, said in a release. “She led the way earlier this year with the Starz brand transformation, launching a masterbrand strategy for the network which involved integrating the Encore services into the new Starz, as well as the highly successful launch of the new Starz App.”

Hoffman joined Starz in 2012 after being VP of creative and brand strategy at AMC Networks, key architect for notable campaigns for The Walking Dead, Mad Men and Breaking Bad among others. She had been senior VP of originals marketing at Starz before being promoted to EVP of marketing in February 2015. 

Starz has named elevated Jeffrey Hirsch, the former Time Warner Cable executive who came on board a year ago, to chief operating officer from president of global marketing and product planning. The premium programmer also promoted David Weil to chief legal officer, expanding his reach to include human resources.

The moves come shortly after Starz, under CEO Chris Albrecht (to whom Hirsch and Weil continue to report), announced the retirement of president Glenn Curtis and that chief revenue officer Michael Thornton was leaving his post but remaining as a consultant until the fall. Distribution duties had come under Thornton and now will come under Hirsch as COO: his oversight includes affiliate sales, marketing programming operations and research, Starz distribution and technology and product development. He already oversaw development of new products and services, including the new Starz all-in-one app (which Comcast continues to refuse to authenticate), the Starz rebrand and repositioning of Starz Encore services. 

H.R. had been part of Curtis's purview and now is part of Weil's as chief legal officer, Starz said. Starz also recently appointed former CAA executive Pamela Wolfe as executive vice president of human resources.

Albrecht said in a release: "We are transforming Starz into a more innovative global entertainment brand. Jeff’s talent and experience will help us accelerate the transformation that began five years ago. We have made great progress in our programming, brands, subscribers and shareholder value, and the organization is focused with an eye to the future.”

Weil had been EVP and general counsel at Starz. 

Starz CEO Chris Albrecht’s recent schedule in New York City reflects a busy time for his premium network. There were premieres for the new Steven Soderbergh-produced series The Girlfriend Experience and for returning romance hit Outlander and, related to the Scottish kilt drama, the Tartan Day Parade to attend. (Outlander star Sam Heughan was grand marshal .) That’s not counting the phone calls he planned to make to key distributors, letting them know Starz was about to announce a new direct-to-consumer (but not cannibalistic) online service on April 5.

“It has been said to me by the people that run these companies that of the many things that have been done by our fellow premium services, one of the things that pissed off people the most was that they didn’t get a heads up. And we’re not that kind of partner,” Albrecht told Multichannel News editors during a March 30 visit to the magazine’s offices. With him were communications executive vice president Theano Apostolou and global marketing and product planning president Jeffrey Hirsch, the former Time Warner Cable executive who’s also been busy communicating with affiliates about Encore channels rebranding into Starz Encore.

When Albrecht, a former HBO chief, joined Starz in January 2010, it was a movie service experimenting with some original shows, like Party Down. Now it’s tracking to a goal of 85 to 90 new original series episodes per year. Owned by John Malone’s Liberty Media when Albrecht joined, Starz was spun off in 2013 and has been a takeover rumor on a continuous basis. It also has started to produce real hits with passionate viewer bases, including Outlander, pirate drama Black Sails and the top-rated, New York City-based Power, from executive producer Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson.

Albrecht and company spoke with MCN and B&C editorial director Mark Robichaux, editor Kent Gibbons, programming editor R. Thomas Umstead and senior finance editor Mike Farrell about the state of Starz and the pay TV business. Edited highlights follow.

MCN:Let’s get this out of the way: What can you tell us now about a sales process? Is anything imminent?

Chris Albrecht: I can tell you very directly there’s never been a formal sales process. If there had been a formal sales process, we wouldn’t be here talking about this stuff because someone else would own Starz. You don’t put together a formal sales process and then end up not selling the company to somebody. There have always been lots of strategic discussions.

The interesting thing, if you look at the media business — with all this talk of consolidation and everything and all the sense that putting parts of these companies together, whether it be people looking at what’s going to happen with Sumner [Redstone at Viacom] or the changing of the guard at Fox or now that [Time Warner Inc. CEO Jeff Bewkes] has reduced Time Warner to a digestible piece. So many questions for so many companies, including the free radicals that Malone talks about.

What you realize is that the media business is not a business run by people who are dealmakers. They may be show-makers, they may be schedule-makers, they are terrific executives, but they’re not deal guys. Bewkes has done a great job spinning off stuff , Sumner has split up stuff , Rupert [Murdoch of Fox] does some giant things, [Disney CEO Bob] Iger’s got his four, five, six billion dollar price range that he’s done a wonderful job at. But this is not a business where M&A is …

MCN:Driving everything.

CA: If you’re a Liberty [Media] company, which I had the opportunity and the good fortune to be a part of, you’re working with guys who live for this, right? These are deal guys. All the value they’ve created, everything that’s happened in John’s career has been deals. It’s not like John decided he wanted to be a cable operator. John Malone is, you know, a visionary in this space. So of course there are always conversations going on. And unfortunately everyone has big mouths. People see you walking out of a meeting, and they assume that there is a transaction that’s imminent and then, sort of irresponsibly — no offense to the press, you guys not being one of those transgressors — put out information that is completely unfounded, denied, and then it just becomes almost laughable, if it wasn’t for the fact that it affected so many people’s lives in such a kind of stressful way, the employees of Starz and stuff like that.

But it’s my job, it’s our job, to continue to find ways to build the business. And I firmly believe, John Malone firmly believes, [Liberty CEO] Greg Maffei firmly believes, I think the board of Starz firmly believes that aligning ourselves in some way with other people who can create better opportunities in a combined structure just makes sense. We could be the people that are the leaders. We don’t have to be bought in order to have that happen, and we haven’t been sitting back, waiting for someone to come put us out of our misery. What we have been doing is taking care of our knitting.

MCN:It sounds as if you don’t feel the need to merge or do a deal with anyone right away.

CA: I don’t. I do believe that eventually we will see those kinds of deals being made in the space that Starz lives in. I do believe that Starz is a logical, valuable and potentially powerful addition in a partnership or in a combination structure. We’re unique in our business model. And we’re just getting started on what I think is the new era for Starz. And it’s a direction that people are trying to go in. We’re a small company, relatively speaking. But we still make a lot of money at really high margins. And inside most companies, that ain’t chopped liver. We’re large enough to make a difference, we’re small enough to be nimble on our own and we’re small enough to fi t into a lot of different kinds of structures.

Look, do I think something is going to happen eventually? I think a lot is going to happen eventually. Do I think Starz is going to be a part of that? I think it would be foolish for us to not try and sail in those waters if there is value to be created because our job is to increase value for the shareholders.

From my point of view, Starz is an undervalued asset right now because the opportunity far outweighs the risk. We’re stabilized. We’ve got our product in order. We’ve got a new technology that we think is going to offer us a great opportunity. Now let’s go grow the top line. Now let’s go show people that Starz is an active company with a long and healthy future. And if people want to come in and out of the stock, great. If people are coming in for M&A, maybe there will be a deal tomorrow, maybe there will be a deal three or four years from now. In that period of time, however, we believe in the value of our stock, in the value and strength of our company.

MCN:Isn’t there a fairly high amount of risk now, though, to be a premium channel that’s either number two, number three, in that category in a world where people are paying $9 for Netflix or they’re adding on Amazon Prime, where they have so many different options?

CA: There is always more competition, and I think some of the decisions we’ve made show that we can play in that space. We also have the opportunity of still having a pretty good business with guys that aren’t going away any time soon.

We know we’re not going to be Netflix but we can be somewhere in between a true premium channel and an SVOD service. And if we can grow our business effectively, then we are just a good stock to have in your portfolio. If we can put on really compelling programming that fits in some of the cracks that we see and appeal to audiences that respond to our brands and give them not just the products but the features that they can access that stuff , then I think … Look, any business that continues to grow is a good business.

MCN:Stepping back, then, where is Starz at this moment in its evolution, based on your strategic vision?

CA: This is an important time for Starz. For the last six years or so, we’ve been kind of cleaning up some business decisions that had been made by Starz to go into the movie business; to make a Netflix deal; as a part of Liberty to have tracker stocks, two tracker stocks, one tracker stock; to be reattributed to Liberty; to be spun out by Liberty; the decision to go into original programming; the decision and the announcement for Liberty to spin away from Starz. You know, along with just doing your job of selling subscriptions and working with [multichannel video program distributors] and growing an original programming lineup, that’s been more than a full-time job.

We’ve been looking at an evolving landscape in the media business, and I think all of those things, for us, have pointed to a lot of opportunity for the subscription television business, premium channels, of which we consider there to be basically three — us, Showtime and HBO. The SVOD services aside — Netflix is a true SVOD service; Hulu, kind of a hybrid; and Amazon, a great retailer that has decided to give video away for free until recently they made a deal with us and Showtime and a few others.

In looking at that evolving landscape, we thought that it was important that we preserve the very important historical relationships with the largest video suppliers in the world, which are the MVPDs, and yet take advantage of what seems to be now an inexorable pull towards alternative choices, be it alternative choices in the packaging offered by the traditional distributors or be it alternative choices offered by new entrants who are looking to create an architecture of virtual MVPDs or wholesalers.

And then to look at this opportunity to say, OK, the biggest obstacle to the expansion of premium subscribers over the decades that there have been premium channels has been two things. One is content objectors, who don’t want uncut, uncensored movies in their homes. The other is just price. As basic-tier channels and sports rights and everything just pushed the price of entry up, with the premium being the cherry on top, that became more out of reach of even more people.

And yet, when you look at the content that people want to see and the features that they want to use and the way they want to watch it — commercial free, at their leisure — you think, OK, well the premiums, we’ve got [multiplex channels], we’ve got choices, we’re ad-free, we’ve got the kind of originals they want, we’ve got the technology features, on-demand, authenticated apps. We’re what they want — they just can’t get to us.

And how do we get it to them and how do we not have it cannibalize our current business? How are we more distributor-friendly while we’re trying to do this, and how can we maybe even have the two of them work together and show ourselves as a more forward-thinking, more technologically-based company?

MCN:Is it harder to get the distributor’s attention, to get them to prioritize marketing your service?

Jeffrey Hirsch: I think first and foremost, gaining and keeping subscribers is the biggest priority for them. And I think figuring out how to grow revenue on top of that, obviously, is the second priority, and that’s where we come in. So if we can help in any way — whether it’s putting this app on top of the broadband-onlys to drive more upside there — then we are willing.

CA: We make money for them. We are not in there jamming them with big price increases. We just want to grow our business consistently in their lane.

MCN:Do you see more companies like Netflix or Amazon emerging?

CA: It’s hard to make shows. I know everybody thinks it’s so easy. [Laughter.] Let me tell you something. It’s only television, as I like to say, but on the other hand this isn’t so easy. So you’ve got YouTube out there; you’ve got Google. I mean there are big companies that could decide to do anything, but big companies can trip over themselves. Just because somebody does one thing well doesn’t mean they’re going to be able to do everything well. There is obviously some synergy in how a lot of companies can make money together, to the question you had before: “I did this well, you guys did this well, let’s do both things even better together.”

MCN:Do you think we are hitting a ceiling with regards to the amount of content that’s coming into the marketplace?

CA: I sure hope so. [Laughter.] I think what you’ll see is — I think you’ll see people kind of going to the sidelines. Not everybody is going to be able to do this, particularly ad-supported [networks]. Again, I like the subscription model, I like the premium, non-advertiser supported model.

The big broadcast networks, some of the big channels, right now they’re doing great, they’ve been well-funded for a while. But I think there’s risk. Less eyeballs don’t hurt us. Less subscribers hurt us. Less eyeballs hurt advertiser guys, and if they can’t charge enough money for their commercials, then they’re going to have a hard time getting enough money to make shows.

That to me is a world that I think has got a different trajectory, different challenges than where we are, which is a model that kind of is what everybody else is trying to get into. You know? Not a lot of people are trying to build ad-supported stuff right now. Everybody’s trying to build subscription, non-ad-supported stuff. So, hello, we’ve got that. Now let’s figure out how we can do more of it better.

MCN:You’ve taken a different tack than most networks in that you’re reaching out to different target audiences with your content, be it African American, urban, Hispanic. Will that continue?

CA: Yes. We’re going to expand on that. And it’s even the millennials with [Ash vs. Evil Dead], Blunt Talk, some of the other things that we’re doing. We’ve got American Gods coming up. Targeting a specific audience makes a lot of sense. It helps you focus your marketing, helps you focus your PR, helps you know what you’re doing. Through social media, through all of these opportunities, put something on that appeals to a demographic group, especially if they are avid users of social media, especially if they’re vocal.

And although we may not have the biggest audiences on television, we do absolutely, by major social media platform metrics, have some of the most engaged. That’s good, because they’re going to talk about the show and other people have a chance to find out about it and that’s the best recommendation engine you can find. Other people talking about the programs and then ultimately talking about your brand.

MCN:What about bingeing? Are you going to extend the practice now of launching some series in advance, all the episodes, much like Netflix does or is that something that you …

CA: We’ve got two shows launching the same weekend: Outlander [April 9], which is going to be one episode at a time, and The Girlfriend Experience [April 10], which is dropping them all. Different audiences, different shows.

And just because we drop all the episodes doesn’t mean that people are obligated to watch them. Look, Outlander is a big-tent show. If you want to watch a season of Outlander, for me, however long, I binge it — as a grownup, I don’t really have that much time. But when we got all the rough cuts delivered to us over the summer from [Steven] Soderbergh on Girlfriend Experience. I got them on a Friday night. I woke up Saturday morning, I had a beach house for the summer and I thought, ‘All right, I’ll watch a couple episodes.’ I downloaded them all. I’ll watch a couple episodes, I’ll go and take my bike, go to lunch, come back, I’ll watch a few more, I’ll go to dinner, I’ll watch the rest tomorrow. I started watching them, 13 half-hour episodes. Six and a half hours later, I was starving, but I was like, ‘Holy shit, what was that?’ I could not stop watching it. It was fantastic. And the research showed that young women — maybe even counterintuitively, until you see this amazing performance by [series star] Riley [Keough] — are actually drawn to this show and they’ll enjoy being able to make that choice to watch multiple episodes in a row if they want to.

MCN:We’ve talked about everything that’s coming in on Starz. Disney movies are going away in another year. How do you fill that void? You get oneStar Warsmovie [the 2015 box-office powerhouseStar Wars: The Force Awakens] and you’re out.

CA: I like to say we have the only Star Wars movie. [Laughter.] But I mean, look, if you’re looking at the launch of this thing that we’re talking about, so you’ve got Outlander and Girlfriend Experience into Power and Survivor’s Remorse, into Ash and Blunt Talk and over that the only Star Wars movie. You know, Disney is a great partner. Sure, it would have been great to have them. We love the Sony guys and the future that Rothman has there. We need good movies, we’ve got library deals with everybody. I’m telling you, if you’re looking for a movie to watch, you’ve got a better shot at finding something you want to watch in a library deal than hoping that the studio output deal that you have is getting lucky. And by the time it flows through the theaters, flows through pay per view, flows through home entertainment, flows through whatever, [electronic sell-through], not that many people still are waiting for it in the pay window. But something they haven’t seen for a few years, you go, yeah.

Starz is gearing up a big rebranding of its Encore service that it hopes will drive more subscribers to the premium channel.

The April 5 rebranding of Encore’s services to “Starz Encore” channels will include running past episodes of Starz original series on Starz Encore outlets, timed before new seasons of the shows return to Starz.

Currently Starz has about 23.6 million subscribers, while the lower-priced Encore services have about 32.2 million. Starz would like to narrow that gap.

In January, Starz tested the upsell potential with Cablevision Systems and other operators by airing seasons one and two of pirate series Black Sails on Encore ahead of the third-season launch on Starz. The results, executives said, were encouraging: Of 700,000 Encore (non-Starz) households that sampled Black Sails, more than 2% later added Starz to their subscriptions and went on to watch new episodes on Starz.

“As you look at this business, it’s very competitive, there are a lot of choices, and brands become more and more important,” Starz president of global marketing and product planning Jeff Hirsch said. “We have a great Starz brand that is continuing to grow. Encore has 9 million more Encore customers than Starz customers based on how some of our distributors sell us. How do we strengthen both products by putting them together? The idea is to launch a master brand where we create a windowing strategy across both Starz and Starz Encore. What we hope is, it will strengthen them and simplify them.”

Large distributors like Comcast and Time Warner Cable have sold the services separately in the past, Hirsch and other executives said.

“What we hope [the rebranding] will do and what we think it will do is strengthen the product for our distributors,” Hirsch said. “By simplifying the portfolio under a master brand, by co-mingling on-demand together and windowing back and forth, we believe this will give a better upsell and revenue opportunity for our distributors’ partners that sell the product separately.”

There are six Starz channels (five are themed, such as Starz in Black) and eight Encore networks (including themed versions such as Encore Westerns).

Starz is backing the eff ort with a marketing campaign using the tagline “Starz: Obsessable,” highlighting original series and hit movies.

Alison Hoffman, Starz executive vice president of marketing, said a study by Hollywood marketing firm Troika found that 85% of adults consider themselves fans of something, and 70% of that group identify themselves as fans of a TV series.

“That was the nugget,” Hoffman said, saying Starz originals like Outlander and Ash vs Evil Dead have passionate fan bases, not unlike fans of the Avengers and Star Wars movies.

Starz has the rights to Marvel’s Avengers movie franchise — it is currently airing Avengers: Age of Ultron — and will have the premium rights to Star Wars: The Force Awakens later this year.

Hoffman said the “Starz: Obsessable” campaign, and a subsequent social-media effort, should further drive new subscribers to the channel.