With Starz set to become a pure play standalone public company by year end, CEO Jeff Hirsch is out talking up its strong points and how it competes in a crowded streaming landscape — price increases, bundling, and most importantly, he said, containing content costs with a slate of new shows in development as later season series get costly.

“When seasons go from one to two to three to four [seasons], three to four is where the cost really pops because most of the actors get bigger raises, and you have to really manage that. So, you have to have in your portfolio of development shows that can actually replace shows as they get into later seasons,” he said at a Deutsche Bank media conference today, providing one of the most blunt assessments of a practice introduced by Netflix and embraced by other streamers where shows produced under the Cost Plus model...