Anchor Bay has been renamed as Starz Home Entertainment. Info is at www.davisdvd.com.

I think this is a terrible renaming. It makes it sound like their DVD releases are somehow a product of the Starz network. Anchor Bay was a good company with good focus on cult products and I see no reason not to leave the label named what it already is.

A moment of silence for Anchor Bay's passing....

This is a truly pointless and stupid change. And it really does sound like it is a branch of the Starz network. Also, I hate the increasing acceptance of "z" as a replacement for "s" at the end of words.

Looks like they've already changed the site a bit, and they have the logo posted as well:

http://www.anchorbayentertainment.com/index.asp?p=Home

Oh well, as long as this change means that they'll now need to release more versions of Evil Dead so that they can have the new company name and logo on the packaging, then I'm all for it!

Hopefully when they see their sales numbers go down, they'll rethink this name change.

Sorry, Ms. M, but this suckz!

Looks like they got the same guy who designed DDD site. Agree with everyone, this blowz.

Good grief.

What a boneheaded decision

So this isn't related to Starz cable network at all?

I would've loved to have been in the room with the morons that came up with this decision. I bet it played out like a very bad SNL sketch.

I heard about this like several weeks ago. I don't remember where but it's hardly news.

Edit:

Yeah, Their "Hellboy: Sword of Storms" DVD is a "Starz Home Entertainment" DVD and it's design is 100% "Anchor Bay" in every respect and it even has "www.anchrobayentertainment.com" on the packaging.

This is hardly news when items under this brand have been available for months.

Well obviously it's news to the rest of us that posted before you, and that's all that matters, right?

While I hate it as well, I believe it's done for trademark reasons. Either the name is already trademarked, or they want something unique that can be recognized and associated only with their products. They don't want something too generic that could be associated with something else. If you type in "stars" in a search engine, for instance, you'll get tons of unrelated pages, but "starz" narrows it down considerably.

Wow, that's an awful name.

RE: Adding "z" to the end of a word:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7xgiO_NdkQ

Branding. It's pretty straightforward.

Also, bear in mind that outside of the industry and forums like this, the name "Anchor Bay" has borderline-zero name recognition anyway.

I guess the same would go for Criterion or Blue Underground.

OMG! I will really miss the name and logo
Renaming and rebranding is a dangerous thing, hope they realise that. Besides Starz is stupid espesially with "z".

Yeah, imagine if Lifetime Network bought Criterion and changed it to Lifetime Network Movies.

I'd like to see Salo in rotation on the Lifetime Network.

And then Criterion will be forced to released a deluxe edition of 15 and Pregnant.

Don't forget Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?

Spine #400, anyone?

Damn_suits and their corporate identity bullshit. Among people who have 1000+ DVD collections, Anchor Bay is a brand with plenty of weight. Let's just hope they don't pull a Bonnie Hammer and alter the wonderfully off-center nature of the Anchor Bay catalog too much.

I think this is related to the Starz cable channel b/c the logo design on the website is exactly like that of the movie channel.