I'm sure that Starz gets it: the future of content is streaming. Everybody gets it. And it's frustrating that we don't have everything streaming today b/c the technology is there and has been there for some time. But the bottom line is that cable is still alive and well today, and the margins are much better there than what Netflix is offering.

Pirating is not the burning platform here like it was for music. Netflix is not iTunes. Content providers still have the option to make plenty of money through cable and they're going to do just that until that medium becomes completely disrupted and they no longer have that as a lucrative channel. Starz sees Netflix streaming as cannibalizing their cable business, and to a reasonably large extent they're probably right b/c Netflix streaming has gone mainstream. The day will come when cable will no longer support Starz (and others') content and they know it's coming. Until then, sad to say but this is just smart business.