Chris Albrecht’s premium movie and TV service, Starz, marks one year as a standalone company next week — and there’s renewed gossip about whether it will soon be eyeing a suitor this year.
Wall Street analysts love the stock, which has risen 115 percent during the past 12 months.
“The stock has done amazing,” Amy Yong, cable and satellite analyst with Macquarie Capital, told The Post. “The free cash flow, it’s an under-penetrated asset, it’s got [John Malone] backing and there are M&A aspects.”
Starz is barred from holding sales talks for a year since it was spun off (by Liberty Media), sources said.
The most obvious suitor for Starz is Cablevision CEO James Dolan, sources suggested, though other names continually crop up — like CBS, Viacom and 21st Century Fox.
Dolan has long held talks with Liberty Media — chaired by John Malone — over what might happen with Starz, several sources said, but the question is whether Dolan-controlled AMC Networks is a good fit.
AMC Networks’ recent $1 billion acquisition of Liberty Global’s Chellomedia may have killed much of its ability to make a play for Starz, one source said.
The pay-TV service is now in 22 million homes and has added subscribers — thanks to new promotions from Time Warner Cable — even while losing a massive content deal with Disney.
Starz loses Disney content at the end of 2015.
The company has said it will replace the Disney content in part with original content.
Michael Bay-produced “Black Sails,” a pirate drama, is set to debut Jan. 25.
The firm also did a major deal with Fox TV Distribution mid-year.
“There’s not an obvious combination that’s bigger than the sum of the parts,” Vasily Karasyov, entertainment sector analyst at Sterne Agee, told The Post, adding that “revenue trends are improving and it’s still cheap and there’s upside to estimates.”