STARZ COO Jeffrey Hirsch on ‘Power’ Ratings, the ‘John Wick’ Series, and Adding More International Markets

Crime drama Power, which stars Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, has moved from being a hit show on STARZ to a hit show on premium cable to a straight-up hit show. Last Sunday’s episode was the most-watched scripted original of the night on all of TV — premium cable, basic cable or broadcast — in the 18-to-49 demo.

The series has also become a growth engine for the STARZ app, which more than doubled Power‘s streams for the Season 5 premiere vs. the Season 4 premiere a year ago, and has given the network a name-brand series to market its expansion onto U.S. streamers like YouTube TV and DirectTV Now and internationally on services like Bell Canada, Amazon’s Channels service in the United Kingdom and Germany, and 19 countries in the Middle East on STARZ Play Arabia.

STARZ Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Hirsch sat down with Decider to talk about what Power and its huge social-media presence mean for the network, as well as how the network’s originals are shaping up for the rest of 2018.

DECIDER: Let’s start with Power. Tell me what to infer from the fact that the viewership is up significantly from Season 4 to Season 5. Do you attribute that to new subscribers signing up to watch the show or existing subscribers finding it?

JEFFREY HIRSCH: It’s a combination of the two. A lot of consumers are coming back to it, and there are a lot of new consumers coming to it.

What does out-of-season viewing look like for a show like Power?

We have it on the app and on demand, and we do marathons with it on linear in the off-season. It’s only of the consistently highest-rated shows on the network, and we still see a lot of viewership for the first four seasons. It’s very consistent through the off-season.

With Lionsgate now owning STARZ, do you look at Lionsgate differently than you do other studios? Does Justin Simien signing an overall deal with Lionsgate mean he’ll be developing shows for STARZ?

Lionsgate will continue selling shows to other networks, but we’re always looking for what’s next and great for us.

Simien’s Dear White People would have paired well with Power if he had developed that series for STARZ rather than for Netflix.

Dear White People is great. I would have loved to have it on STARZ. The more overall deals that Lionsgate has with great writers and producers, the better I feel about getting that output onto STARZ.

STARZ has had success with under-represented communities. Is that the over-riding development imperative for STARZ?

We’re looking for fresh voices that appeal to diverse audiences. There are a lot of consumers who don’t see their lives on television, and we’re trying to bring premium content to those communities — Vida for Latinos, Power for African-Americans, American Gods for a lot of different groups. [Network president] Chris Albrecht looked at the landscape six years ago and decided to find shows for different audiences. For our African-American audiences, Power is Game of Thrones. Not only is Power geared toward the African-American community, it’s the third-highest-rated show on premium cable after Game of Thrones and Shameless. That’s a great strategy for us.

Power and Outlander, in particular, are big drivers of social-media traffic. What does social media mean for STARZ?

Social media amplies passionate fans. Fans created #Droughtlander on social media as a means for talking to each other between seasons and talking about what may happen next season. That keeps STARZ top of mind, which is a really hard thing to do. That also gives us a lot of feedback for scheduling and how people feel about the network.

Lionsgate is shooting John Wick 3 right now. Would the STARZ John Wick spinoff get economies of scale from shooting on the same locations, or are you not that far along on the series?

We’re not as far along on the series. There may be some economies if the series and future films go forward, but the show is not shooting yet. We love the franchise and think the show could be important for global markets, but it’s still in development at this point.

With HBO apparently ramping up its original programming to compete with Netflix, do you foresee a bifurcation of very large services and smaller niche services with fewer services in the middle?

There’s the traditional business with satellite and cable, and there’s the virtual business with YouTube, Netflix and Hulu. Research is showing that viewers will have multiple services, and we think there’s room for premium subscriptions. I’m not sure if I see a world where we’re putting reality TV on STARZ, but I think we can grow the network in a big way with a focus on diverse voices as an addition to Netflix, HBO, etc., rather than as a replacement for those services.

Do you feel like you need to increase your programming from 2018 to 2019 by some particular number of hours?

We look at it from an acquisition and retention basis, so we’d like to have shows like Power that drive acquisition and shows like Wrong Man and America to Me for retention. We want movies and documentaries to expand the subscription’s value to consumers.

You made a few acquisitions from Seeso’s catalog, including Night Train and Take My Wife. Are you having any discussions around making additional seasons of those shows?

Those were bets on whether some of those shows would tie closely to our audiences for Power or Vida or Outlander, so we’re really looking to see what happens with those shows. We’re also putting a focus on kids’ programming to increase the overall value of the product.

What’s the plan for more international expansion?

We’re planning to launch in 15 more markets over the next three years.

That will be new markets with Prime Video?

We launched Canada with Bell, so it will depend on the market. We have three different models that we like — launching on other providers like Amazon, launching with local providers like Bell Canada, and the venture model like STARZ Play Arabia, where we have about a million subscribers. As we launch across the world, it will be a combination of those three models.

What do you have coming up over the next few quarters?

We’ll have Outlander, Counterpart, Vida, and we’ll have a new show called The Spanish Princess. We’ll have American Gods sometime early next year.

I like American Gods a lot. You don’t have any worries about life after co-creator Bryan Fuller departing the show?

It’s a great book, and Neil Gaiman has been involved since Day 1. The cast is phenomenal and has great chemistry.

STARZ is an easy add-on to streamers like Amazon Channels and YouTube TV. Does that seem to be where most new subscribers will find you going forward?

We’re seeing a lot of growth on those platforms — particularly with under-served audiences — because subscribers are not having to sign up to a higher-tier $100-plus cable package to get access to it. They’re adding STARZ for $9 to a $40 service like YouTube TV.

HBO, Netflix and Amazon all get more than half their minutes viewed from their licensed film catalogs. Is that the case with STARZ as well?

It depends on the platform. On digital, the originals drive the viewership.

Disney is existing its deal with Netflix, and you also have a deal with Disney. What’s the status of that?

Rogue One was our last film with Disney in the Pay 1 window, but we will continue to have Disney in the second and third windows. (Editor’s Note: The “Pay 1” window is when a feature film first becomes available on premium cable or a streaming service.)

Do you see Disney launching its own service and AT&T looking to invest more in HBO’s exclusives, are you concerned at all about continuing to have access to big-studio film catalogs in the first window?

It’s hard to say. As direct-to-consumer services continue to become more important, Lionsgate’s 16,000-title film library continues to become much more important. Lionsgate is making 15 big feature films a year and 40 smaller-budget films, which potentially makes STARZ much more important as the industry continues to change.

Scott Porch writes about the TV business for Decider, is a contributing writer for Playboy, and hosts a podcast about new digital content called Consumed with Scott Porch. You can follow him on Twitter @ScottPorch.

Stream Power on STARZ