Starz Joins Streaming Movement With New Subscription Service

Add Starz (NASDAQ: STRZA) to the growing list of networks looking to expand its audience.

The premium cable channel revealed on Tuesday it was rolling out a brand new subscription service available immediately. For $8.99 a month, Apple, Android and online users would get access to the network’s library and be allowed four streams occurring simultaneously.

Starz head Chris Albrecht told the media the new initiative would make his network’s programming more widely available to more than 20 million broadband users, yet in a different way than their recent alliance with Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN)'s Amazon Prime.

Related Link: Starz Re-Brands As Acquisition Rumors Continue To Swirl

“So it opens up a whole new world for us, because unlike our relationship with Amazon, where it’s their environment that we are putting the Starz product into, this is an environment that’s been created by Starz for Starz subscribers and that experience is one that we curate and we control. And that is a very big difference.”

The move comes not long after Starz announced a re-branding of it Encore channels, which many analysts believe is being done to help make the network more appealing to potential suitors, possibly including Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (USA) (NYSE: LGF) and CBS Corporation (NYSE: CBS).

The Starz service is will also be available to traditional linear subscribers at no extra cost.

Image Credit: Public Domain; Blackness Castle, Starz's Outlander Filming Location