Starz is reorienting itself in its post-Lionsgate era and making a notable round of layoffs.

The premium cabler cut 7 percent of its workforce on Friday in what has been described as a shifting of resources across the Jeffrey Hirsch-led company. In its latest 10-K filing as of last June, Starz had 541 employees, which means the latest round of layoffs is impacting less than 40 staffers.

The company, vulnerable to cord-cutting and a decline in linear TV households, has embarked on an expansion effort pitching itself to Wall Street as a pure-play streaming brand. Up until ten months ago, it had been housed as part of Lionsgate since the Jon Feltheimer-led studio made a $4.4 billion cash and stock deal in 2016 to acquire Starz with an eye toward growing its own subscription-based business. Lionsgate had doubled down on the Starz brand when it sold its 31 percent stake in premium channel Epix to MGM for $397.1 million.

But the companies had mulled a split during the pandemic years and completed a formal spinoff last year. The network, with offices in Santa Monica and Englewood, Colorado, boasts franchises like Outlander, which returned for its eighth season this year, andPower, a five-season crime drama that launched multiple spinoffs.

The company ended 2025 with 12.7 million OTT subscribers, growth of 7.6 percent year-over-year. (Starz will be stopping reporting subscribers in its future earnings updates.) We deliver edgy, premium content for women and underrepresented audiences that broad-based streamers dont address, Hirsch said on a Feb. 27 earnings call. Content remains core to everything we do.

More to come.