Starz is a Canadian English language premium television network owned by Bell Media.

Under its current name and format launched in March 2019, the network also broadcasts select original programming from the U.S.-based Starz premium channel, pursuant to a partnership between Bell Media and Starz Inc. parent company Lionsgate announced in early 2018.

[2][3] Starz is carried by various Canadian cable and satellite television providers, including Bell Satellite TV, Shaw Direct, Rogers Cable, Vidéotron, EastLink, Shaw, Telus and Cogeco; since the 2019 relaunch it has also been available on a direct-to-consumer basis as an addon to the Crave streaming service, as well as through Amazon Prime Video Channels and Apple TV Channels.

[7] On November 19, 2015, Corus Entertainment announced that as a result of a strategic review, it had decided to exit the pay-television industry in order to concentrate on its national specialty channels more, and announced that it would shut down Encore Avenue and Movie Central (which held a monopoly position in Western Canada, while TMN held a monopoly in the East), and work with Bell to transition existing subscribers to TMN Encore and The Movie Network respectively.

Shortly thereafter, Starz also became available on a direct-to-consumer basis as an add-on to the Crave streaming service, being priced at $5.99 per month.

Subscribers to one of the two services through a traditional TV service provider do not necessarily have to subscribe to the other; however, Crave (as TMN) was very frequently sold together in a package with Encore,[13] and some providers continue to offer Crave and Starz only as part of a combined package.

Viewers of the linear Starz channels via over-the-top streaming platforms can only access the Eastern Time feeds.

For a time while under the Mpix and TMN Encore names, the channel offered a limited amount of television series in the form of pop culture-related series on the topic of films and filmmaking including: Following the January 2018 announcement of Bell's partnership with Starz, Encore began airing selected original programming from that service in advance of a full relaunch scheduled for March 2019.

[15] Similar to Crave's output deals with HBO and Showtime, the Bell/Starz partnership covers new and most library series produced and fully owned by Starz and Lionsgate.

Certain other series commissioned by Starz but distributed internationally by other companies, such as Outlander (produced by Sony and carried in Canada by W Network and Netflix) and American Gods (for which Amazon Video holds worldwide rights outside the U.S.), were not affected at all by this change.