For Starz CEO, Early Results ‘Very Encouraging’ From Amazon Prime Streaming Partnership

Starz thinks it’s “a very good time to be a premium provider of non-advertising-supported content with a subscription-based model,” CEO Christopher Albrecht said on a Thursday earnings call. Though the “core” Starz business continues to grow, “we must take advantage of new distribution opportunities that are now the realities of the television ecosystem,” Albrecht said. For example, the distribution agreement that Starz signed with Amazon in December, enabling Amazon Prime users to subscribe to Starz, among other services, as part of Amazon’s Streaming Partners program (see 1512080052), is for Starz yielding “very encouraging” results in the “early data on subscriptions,” he said. “After taking this first step with Amazon, we are now actively engaging with additional new distributors that want to provide the Starz experience on their platforms.” Starz also is nearing completion of its own “stand-alone app, which we plan to deploy in the coming months,” he said. The app “will assist us in securing opportunities to distribute Starz on non-MVPD platforms and will also help us innovate with traditional distribution partners,” he said of multichannel video programming distributors. “Early indications” show that Amazon is “a very good partner,” Albrecht said in Q&A. “This is a business that they are interested in growing, and we couldn't be more pleased that we chose them as our first partner outside of traditional MVPDs.”