Starz Bundles Up with Max & AMC+ Hoping for Safety in Numbers

It hasn't even been a whole month since the start of 2025, and already, there are streaming services that are desperately trying not to be the next to collapse in the face of a changing entertainment landscape. January kicked off with two of the most vulnerable companies still standing — AMC Networks and Starz — announcing a new deal where Vizio TV subscribers who sign up for AMC+ will get Starz as a bonus, and those who sign up for Starz can have AMC+. (In business school, this is known as "tying two rocks together and hoping they'll float." I'm not kidding.) 

Now Starz has announced another deal: subscribing to Max brings Starz along for the ride, and vice versa. This is a bigger deal than the AMC+ one, which was limited to those who own Vizio TVs and are, therefore, semi-locked into Vizio's default streaming service that comes free with purchase. The Max-Starz bundle is for those who subscribe through Amazon's Prime Video service, which has been sneakily trying to become cable's replacement by offering as many streaming services as possible as "add-ons" to the Prime service or via the Firestick. 

Starz was one of the earliest to jump on the "add-on" offer, resulting in many subscribers accessing and paying for Starz via Prime and/or Firestick. (it's why Amazon's first move when it got MGM+ was to bundle it with Starz.) Max, meanwhile, is one of the biggest streamers to agree to let Prime give it the add-on treatment, and the percentage of those who access it that way is big enough that when Warner Bros. tried to end the program, they had to backpedal.

Unsurprisingly, Starz and Max are two services heading toward a crisis point in the coming months, along with AMC Networks. I noted in our 2025 rundown of streaming services to subscribe to that AMCN would most likely be next to fall after Paramount+, but that's only because the Lionsgate divestiture of Starz has already taken twice as long as most assumed it would, leaving it in limbo. Max, meanwhile, was already taking steps to position itself in a safer spot near the more prominent players, making a deal to bundle with the successful Disney+/Hulu package.

Max's Disney+ deal was good for the bottom line but not so much for optics; most TV industry people noted Disney's CEO, Bob Iger, and Max's CEO, David Zaslav, each framed their company as the alpha in the relationship — but only Iger was correct. Max partnering with Starz gives it a bit of a face save, as Warner is very clearly the senior partner. It's the same dynamic as when Starz bundled with BritBox in mid-2024; Starz eagerly put out press releases while BritBox smiled benevolently, keeping calm and carrying on, effectively putting it in the senior position despite the two platforms being relatively equal.

A decade into the streaming wars, it was already clear that rebuilding the cable bundle out of these services is most likely the endpoint of all this upheaval, and the popularity of services creating these prototype bundles throughout 2024 points to the entertainment industry getting there sooner rather than later. But bundling is an end position, not a life raft to ride out the rest of the decade. Starz is now offered in packages not just with Prime, Max, BritBox, and AMC+; it also has a deal that bundles it with Netflix for FIOS customers, and it is available as a Hulu add-on, bundling it up into the Disney+ package. 

That leaves PBS Passport, Peacock, and Paramount+ as the only streamers that don't offer to bring Starz along to the party as a gatecrasher. (However, PBS Passport will happily grab Starz shows like Howards End as a second-run series.) Starz may be maximizing its footprint by giving itself away like this. However, as the music and journalism industries discovered, if you give too much to too many, eventually, no one will pay for you.

Starz is currently airing/streaming The Couple Next Door Season 1 on Fridays and will debut Outlander: Blood of My Blood in the summer of 2025. Max's next British series, C.B. Strike: The Ink Black Heart, debuts Thursday, January 23, 2025, and will debut The Gilded Age Season 3 later in the year. Signing up for both via the Prime deal will cost $20.99 monthly, or ~25% off the combined price.