Premium movie channels Starz and Encore have been sold to Lionsgate in a $4.4 billion cash and stock deal.

Originally created as a counterweight to increasingly expensive premium movie channels, John Malone wanted a cheaper in-house alternative and launched Starz in 1994 on many of his Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) cable systems nationwide. The movie channel never proved to pose a significant threat to Time Warner (Entertainment) or CBS/Viacom, which own HBO and Showtime respectively.

Malone maintained an interest in Starz and the mini-pay Encore Movieplex even after selling TCI cable systems to AT&T (which in turn sold most of them to Comcast) under his Liberty Media holding companies until 2013, when Starz (and Encore) were spun off as an independent company.

The sale was not a surprise and was expected for months.

Lionsgate gains a dependable outlet for its content and Starz and Encore gain access to 16,000 movie and TV shows and a studio to help it produce original content. Lionsgate is already known for its productions including Mad Men and Nurse Jackie. In a media release, Lionsgate says it currently produces 87 original series for 42 different American networks and has earned $7 billion in revenue from its movie releases in the last four years.

Starz continues to be the lesser known premium network, with 24 million subscribers. But many of those subscribers receive the premium movie channel for free or at a profoundly discounted rate as a promotion from their pay television provider. Encore, dubbed a “mini-pay” channel — a reference to the fact it costs about half the price of HBO and other premium channels — has a larger viewer base with 32 million subscribers.

Lionsgate is expected to be less committed to protecting the integrity of the cable television bundle and will likely broaden independent distribution of Starz and Encore through online video outlets and direct sales to consumers.