Most everyone here knows about HBO and Showtime, the two biggest pay cable networks in the U.S. Starz may be less well known in Canada, but it's about to make a bigger splash, after Bell gobbled up the rights to the American channel's programming. 
 
It will mean one of the Movie Network stations, Encore, will be renamed Starz. 

Bell Media signs deal with premium paid TV platform Starz to bring content to Canada   

When I read stuff like this, I can't help but wonder if Rogers ever regrets its move to shut down shomi, it's one-time counterpart to Bell's CraveTV. This is becoming an increasingly crowded - and lucrative - field for a lot of entertainment companies, most especially Netflix. 

Rogers was there and fled early, losing money, but possibly unaware of how big it would become. They surrendered the entire genre to Bell, which gobbled up all the rights to the big American shows from all the pay networks here for years to come. Even if they were to decide to jump back into the market, what in the world would they have to show on it?

Starz, for those who don't know, started out like all the other U.S. paycablers, showing almost all movies. When that became old hat and everybody had seen everything, they moved in to producing series and that's what Bell is counting on to make the deal worthwhile.