Epix, the new movie channel and connected website, is going nationwide across the United States, thanks to closing a deal with satellite TV provider Dish Network. It doesn’t guarantee new subscribers, but it definitely ups the potential audience.
Epix
Epix was first announced in June 2009, when I described it as “a Hulu for movies.” I stand by that early assessment, not for the Epix TV channel, but the Epix website which offers subscribers up to 3,000 streaming movies. OK, so it’s not free like Hulu, but apart from that.
Epix was launched as a joint venture by movie studios Lionsgate, MGM, and Paramount due to CBS seeking to cut the price it paid for movies it aired on Showtime.
Epix launched in October 2009 and after a slow start has been busy doing deals with various cable and satellite companies. These include Verizon FiOS, Cox, Charter, Mediacom, and NCTC. Deals haven’t yet been reached with Comcast and DirecTV, the two largest U.S. pay TV services.
Dish Network Deal
However, a deal has now been reached with Dish Network, which brings another potential 14 million subscribers with it. Epix claims the deal means it will be available in 30 million homes by May.
No details of the Dish deal have been released. But Dish customers who already subscribe, or now choose to subscribe, to the HD service for $10-a-month will receive Epix for no extra charge.
This is a definite boost for Epix, which ran up a $48 million for Q4 2009. To make sure that trend doesn’t continue, the venture needs to turn a fair proportion of those 30 million homes from potential customers to paying customers.
Conclusions
I’d like to see Epix succeed purely because the online element of the service at least shows willing on the part of Hollywood to embrace the Internet as a method of distribution. Sure, it’s making people pay for the pleasure, and tying the whole thing to a cable and satellite channel, but it is at least a start.
