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Starz (stylized as Starz! from February 1994 to March 2005,〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.starz.com/guides/0503STZ1.pdf )〕 and as starz since March 2005〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.starz.com/guides/0504STZ1.pdf )〕) is an American premium cable and satellite television network which serves as Starz Inc.'s flagship service. Starz's programming features mainly theatrically released motion pictures and some first-run original television series. The headquarters of Starz, and its sister networks Encore and MoviePlex, are located at the Meridian International Business Center complex in Meridian, Colorado. In February 2015, Starz's programming was available to approximately 29.3 million television households (25.1% of cable, satellite and telco customers) in the United States (28.5 million subscribers or 24.5% of all households with pay television service receive at least Starz's primary channel). ==History== Starz was launched at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time on February 1, 1994, primarily on cable systems operated by Tele-Communications, Inc.; the first two movies aired on the network were dramas released in 1992: respectively, ''Scent of a Woman'' and ''The Crying Game''. The network was originally operated as a joint venture between TCI and Liberty Media (both companies were controlled by John Malone), with TCI owning a 50.1% controlling interest in the channel. Starz! made its debut as the first phase of a seven-channel thematic multiplex that was launched by Encore over the course of the succeeding eight months, with the remaining six channels being launched between July and September 1994. The multiplex was intended to only include six channels, however on May 31, 1993, Encore acquired the pay cable rights to telecast recent feature films from Universal Pictures released after that year; as a result, TCI/Liberty decided to create an additional Encore service to serve as a competitor to HBO and Showtime.〔 The network carried the moniker "Encore 8" in its on-air branding as part of a numbering system that was used by Encore's multiplex channels. Early trademark filings indicated that TCI/Liberty originally proposed names including "Applause" and "Stars" for the service (the "s" in the latter was ultimately changed to a "z" in the final naming). Starz! focused more on recent feature films, while Encore focused on films released between the 1960s and the 1980s, before adding recent film fare itself in July 1999. It also held the television rights to releases from Carolco Pictures, Fine Line Features and its sibling studio New Line Cinema, and the Walt Disney Company-owned studios Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures and Miramax. Films from those studios were not carried on Starz until 1997, after Disney's output agreement with Showtime for its non-family-oriented films concluded. The network restricted the scheduling of films that contained graphic sexual or violent content to late evening and overnight time periods. Starz's availability was mainly limited to TCI's systems at launch, debuting with a one-month free preview available to prospective subscribers; it would eventually sign its first major carriage agreement outside of the TCI group, through a deal with Continental Cablevision in September 1995. In June 1997, Comcast signed an agreement to carry the network on its Pennsylvania and New Jersey systems to replace Philadelphia-based PRISM after that network shut down that October following the loss of its (and sister network SportsChannel Philadelphia's) sports programming to Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia. The network gained carriage deals with many other major U.S. cable and satellite providers by the early 2000s, particularly with the adoption of digital cable, allowing for providers to add channels that they (even with capacity expansions of up to 60 channels) previously had limited room to carry. Starz! was available to an estimated 2.8 million pay television subscribers by 1996, only one million of whom had subscribed to a cable or satellite provider other than TCI. As a startup network, Starz endured major losses during its early years, with total deficits topping US$203 million and annual losses of US$150 million by 1997. It was predicted to lose an additional US$300 million in revenue before it was predicted to break even. Partly in an effort to get the network's substantial losses off its books, TCI announced a deal on June 2, 1997, in which it transferred majority ownership of the corporate entity that operated Starz, Encore Media Group, to sister company Liberty Media; TCI retained a 20% minority ownership interest in Encore Media Group. Liberty Media assumed the former company's stake in the subsidiary in 1999, following TCI's merger with AT&T Corporation.〔 By May 1998, Starz maintained a subscriber base reaching 7.6 million households with a cable or satellite television subscription. Encore Media Group was later renamed the Starz Encore Media Group in 2000. As part of a corporate restructuring plan in 2003, Starz Encore Group eliminated 100 jobs in its nine regional offices, and closed four of the offices outright. On March 25, 2005, the Starz Encore Group corporate entity was renamed Starz Entertainment. On November 19, 2009, Liberty Media spun off Starz and Encore into a separate public tracking stock called Liberty Starz. On January 1, 2010, Chris Albrecht joined Starz, LLC as its president and chief executive officer, overseeing all of the Starz entities including Starz Entertainment, Overture Films, Anchor Bay Entertainment and Film Roman (Albrecht had served as president of HBO from 2002 until he was fired in 2007 following his arrest on assault charges). On August 8, 2012, Liberty Media announced that it would spin off the Liberty Starz subsidiary into a separate publicly traded company. The spin-off of the subsidiary was completed on January 11, 2013, with Liberty Starz changing its name to Starz Inc. as a result. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Starz」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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