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Epix, the forthcoming pay TV and broadband channel from Lionsgate, MGM and Paramount, will launch on Oct. 30, the company announced yesterday. Though strangely, Verizon (s VZ), which is the network’s only announced carrier, said on its Verizon at Home Blog that the telco will “announce soon the date when the Epix channel will officially launch on FiOS TV,” while linking to the Epix launch press release.
Epix will hit the ground running with hit movies like Iron Man, the Madonna concert special “Sticky and Sweet: Live from Buenos Aires,” and a comedy special from Eddie Izzard. Epix will also have such movies as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Cloverfield.
Epix’s prospects still face industry skepticism given the company has only announced one carriage deal all year. Some question the timing of another premium channel launch when other premium channels are losing subscribers.
Epix is a bit of a different beast than other pay TV channels as it has made online distribution a key part of its offering from the get-go. The company recently announced that it will deliver 3,000 movies to its Epix Megaplex at EpixHD.com in the first quarter of 2010.
In all my tedious conversations with Verizon, they tell me they use Akamai (sources on the Product side, Sales Engineers from both Verizon CORE and Verizon Business) as their CDN, so any online content would not be on Verizon proper rather would be aggregated and distributed, by Akamai the CDN, perhaps “branded” Verizon… AFAIK.