Media Money
- Black Friday at Best Buy
- Facebook's Biggest-Ever Holiday Shopping Season
- Facebook's New Dual Class Structure - Slow Steps to an IPO
- Can Murdoch Help Bing Challenge Google and Shift the Content Equation?
- Twilight, Inc., A Worldwide Craze
- Oprah to Leave Syndication in 2011
- Sony's E-Reader Shortage and the Digital Book Battle
- Salesforce.com Brings Facebook and Twitter's Social Capabilities to Businesses
- Sumner Redstone's Companies Face Off Yet Again
- Can YouTube Revolutionize Citizen Journalism?
RSS FEED
MOST SHARED
- 8 Retailers that Gain During the Holidays
- Get Paid Six Figures to Wear a T-Shirt?
- Dubai Spooks Investors But May Bring Buying Opportunity
- Finding the Holiday's Best Buys
- Dubai Fallout Is a Correction, Not Another Crisis: El-Erian
- Longer Lines, Fuller Carts This Black Friday
- Global Selloff From Dubai Woes Shows Signs of Winding Down
- Banks Play Down Dubai Exposure, Investors Still Wary
- The Good Entrepreneur Winner
- US Will Have to Tax Consumers: Economist
- Black Friday at Best Buy
- Strategists on Dubai: Avoid 'Rash Moves' Now
- Longer Lines, Fuller Carts This Black Friday
- Dubai Stock Market Fear Has 'Legs': Dennis Gartman
- Obama's Emission Reduction Pledge Paints Future for Autos
- Is Super Bowl Halftime Act Too Old?
- Surprising Options Trades in TiVo Shares
- EA Sports Hopes to Pump Up Sales Through Pop-Up Locations
- 8 Retailers that Gain During the Holidays
- Dubai Stock Selloff May Bring Buying Opportunity
- Dubai Fallout Is a Correction, Not Another Crisis: El-Erian
- Dubai's Debt Woes Signal New Era for Creditors
- Longer Lines, Fuller Carts This Black Friday
- Get Paid Six Figures to Wear a T-Shirt?
- The World's Biggest Debtor Nations
- Five Tips for Buying a Foreclosed Home
- Slideshow: Fantasy Christmas Gifts 2009
- EA Sports Hopes to Pump Up Sales With Pop-Ups
Text Size 
CNBC Correspondent
Viacom and its Paramount studio [VIA
Loading...
()
], Lionsgate [LGF
Loading...
()
] and MGM broke off from CBS' Showtime [CBS
Loading...
()
] last spring when they couldn't strike new distribution deals, so they decided to launch their own premium movie channel.
 |
], making it available in just 2.5 million homes. The big question: can $9.99 per-month Epix compete with its current limited distribution? Showtime, which is in 17 million U.S. households used to provide $100 million in revenue to Paramount. With such small distribution Epix certainly can't generate near that kind of revenue for Paramount or its other owners.
This morning I interviewed Epix President Mark Greenberg who says that this kind of slow start isn't uncommon for new cable channels.
He also noted the rumors Epix is close to a distribution deal with Dish Network [DISH
Loading...
()
] which reaches more than 13 million households.
Epix is making a big push behind its Web site —EpixHD.com— which it's offering free access to for the next three days. Epix is making more than 3,000 titles available online through its "Epix Megaplex." Epix is really trying to "distribute" its content to the web, password-protected for its subscribers of course, just like it is through your cable box.
The concept makes sense: consumers are demanding access to their content anytime, anywhere, the same idea embraced by Comcast's [CMCSA
Loading...
()
] "On Demand Online," and the "TV Everywhere concept Time Warner's [TWX
Loading...
()
] CEO Jeff Bewkes is pushing. The question is whether that online access will attract more subscribers or generate incremental revenue.
The marketplace for premium movies is far more crowded than it's ever been. Not only are there a number of premium cable channels — Showtime, HBO and Starz [LMDIA
Loading...
()
] — but now there are a ton of other ways to get movies on demand. Netflix [NFLX
Loading...
()
] and Amazon's UnBox [AMZN
Loading...
()
] stream movies on demand right to your television. And then there's the Video-on-Demand that Time Warner Cable and Comcast offer. With consumer spending still tight, we'll see if Epix provides enough value to attract a critical mass of subscribers. It'll be interesting to see if free access to the website this weekend attracts any subscribers who can't get Epix on their TV.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes