Verizon at Home

[#1]

A Wall Street Journal story this morning reported, that Verizon has reached a deal with EPIX, a new movie channel that would be available to FiOS TV subscribers.  Viacom discussed EPIX in its earning conference call with Wall Street this morning as Bloomberg reports.

We can confirm here that Verizon does have a deal to carry programming from EPIX. The new movie channel is expected to launch in October.

We’re excited about this agreement for three reasons.

First, EPIX has exclusive rights to content from three major studios – Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate – and will offer a variety of movies including Paramount’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, MGM’s Pink Panther 2, Lionsgate’s My Bloody Valentine 3-D, and more.  EPIX will showcase dozens of recent releases from Paramount, Paramount Vantage, MGM, United Artists and Lionsgate, along with thousands of classic films. 

Second, this deal allows Verizon to provide our customers with great content on multiple platforms – FiOS TV (both SD and HD), FiOS Internet and Verizon Wireless mobile devices.  Providing content on multiple platforms is a key part of Verizon’s strategy to give our subscribers the content they want, when they want it and where they want it.

Finally, frankly, we also liked the terms of the deal, although those terms are not being disclosed.

Taken altogether, the EPIX agreement gives subscribers one more reason to like FiOS and we’re happy to be the first to reach a deal to carry the channel.

Message Edited by Eric_Rabe on 08-19-2009 02:58 PM

[#2]

Eric,

In my house you could never have enough movie channels so this will be a welcomed addition.  Will it be a premium channel or part of the Extreme HD package?

[#3]

abisdabis,

To answer your question, EPIX is a premium channel – customers who subscribe will get all of the content available with the channel, plus everything on demand. Also, customers will be able to access some content via FiOS Internet and Verizon Wireless mobile devices.

I hope this helps, please let me know if you have any further questions and of course, thanks for reading the Verizon at Home blog. 

-- Eric 

[#4]

Will it be part of the Movies Package or will users need to subscribe to it separately, like HBO?

[#5]

My question is similar to "pvcleave".  I currently have the Extreme HD package, with Movies + HBO, but not Cinemax.  Come October, will I be able to get EPIX under my current plan? Will it be part of Movies?  Thanks in advance

[#6]

Hopefully it will not require a separate subscription. Articles from when the service was announced claimed that they were pricing the service at $1.50 per subscriber to coax the cable companies to offer it free or as part of a multi-channel package.

"Finally, frankly, we also liked the terms of the deal," seems to back up that they're maintaining that pricing model or close to it. Now if Verizon tries to charge a $10 monthly add on just for Epix, well, my one year committment to them will be up in October and Comcast would love to have me back...