Epix Embraces Its New Corporate Identity
Epix is heading into 2023 with a new — yet very familiar — identity. Starting Jan. 15, 2023, the Mgm-owned pay cable network and streaming outlet will take its parent company’s name and be known as MGM+. The rebrand follows Amazon’s $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM in March.
‘We have felt for some time that this is the best service that many people have never heard of,” says Michael Wright, who has been president of Epix since 2017 and will now serve as head of MGM+. “Other than individual shows, the service has never been marketed. Now you have this incredibly powerful, loud name that means something to people. You could spend five years and $100 million trying to launch a new brand, and you wouldn’t have the brand equity that you get with MGM. It’s really something of a gift.”
Wright says that adding a “+” to “MGM” is a signifier that while the channel will continue with a linear cable offering, MGM+ also sees itself as part of Amazon’s streaming diet, alongside Prime Video and ad-supported Freevee.
“But we occupy a lane those two don’t,” says Wright, who also is president of MGM Scripted TV (although EPIX/MGM+ is his primary focus at the moment). “We live in a hybrid space; we are a linear service as well as a digital service.”
The switchover to MGM+ is timed to the Season 3 premiere of “Godfather of Harlem,” one of Epix’s signature dramas, starring Forest Whitaker as real-life 1960s gangster Bumpy Johnson. That’s followed by new seasons of “Billy the Kid,” “From,” “Rogue Heroes” and “Belgravia,” along with fresh offerings including “Hotel Cocaine,” from “Godfather of Harlem” EP Chris Brancato.
MGM+ will also continue to rely heavily on its film library, which includes first-run pay windows for MGM films such as the latest James Bond entry “No Time to Die,” as well as output from Paramount (including “Top Gun: Maverick”), Blumhouse and other studios.
The company was launched in 2009 as a joint venture among Viacom, MGM and Lionsgate, all of which had ended their “pay one” film output deals with Showtime. The three companies decided to band together and move their pay TV windows to a new outlet, which they named Epix.
MGM bought out Viacom and Lionsgate in 2017, and that’s when Wright joined Epix. Although a channel name change was kept on the back burner as MGM went on the market, Wright’s team reworked the Epix logo to mirror MGM’S branding. And he says he set out to define Epix originals in the vein of MGM’S film legacy.
“We use the phrase in the building, ‘television for movie lovers,’” Wright says. “There’s a certain addressable market of viewers out there that don’t go to the movies as much as they used to. They’re not as drawn to the big superhero movies or the big spectacle IP. They like that sophisticated, cinematic, adult contemporary storytelling. And that’s what we focus on.”