Starz Ends Verizon FiOS Blackout With New Carriage Deal
STRZ has more than doubled off its 52-week low of $8.4.
Summary
Starz signed a new distribution agreement with Verizon that restores all STARZ channels, STARZ On Demand and the STARZ app to FiOS customers, closing out the carriage dispute flagged on September 30 that had threatened subscriber and revenue losses. The deal keeps the full Power Universe, Outlander and P-Valley lineup in front of FiOS households and removes a near-term revenue risk for a company with a roughly $395M market cap, where every carriage dollar counts. It follows a mixed Q2 in August — revenue down 3.7% on linear declines and a $147M content contract termination loss — and a $100M credit facility upsize on August 17 that added liquidity. No financial terms of the Verizon agreement were disclosed, so the size of the revenue recovery is unclear.
At the time of this announcement, STRZ was trading at $23.07 on NASDAQ in the Trade & Services sector, with a market capitalization of approximately $395.1M. The 52-week trading range was $8.40 to $32.58. This news item was assessed with positive market sentiment and an importance score of 7 out of 10. Source: PR Newswire.