MGM+
MGM+ is an American premium cable and satellite television network owned by the MGMPlus Entertainment subsidiary of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which is itself a subsidiary of Amazon MGM Studios. The network's programming consists of recent and older theatrically released motion pictures, original television series, documentaries, and music and comedy specials.
The service was originally launched as Epix in the United States on October 30, 2009, by a joint venture between MGM, Lionsgate, and Paramount. After MGM acquired the stakes of the service's co-founders in late 2017, and following the March 2022 acquisition of MGM itself by Amazon, Epix was rebranded as MGM+ on January 15, 2023. It was the culmination of a gradual transition by the network to utilize the imaging of MGM following the buyout, as well as Amazon repositioning it as a sister service to Prime Video and Freevee.
MGM+ is currently led by Michael Wright. Since he joined in November 2017, the network would expand its original program offerings.
The flagship channel and its three multiplex channels are sold by most traditional multichannel video programming distributors either as premium services or as part of a la carte digital movie tiers as well as by over-the-top MVPDs Sling TV, DirecTV Stream, Philo, FuboTV and YouTube TV.
The service is also sold direct-to-consumer through a proprietary streaming service of the same name, and via a la carte subscriptions independent of a traditional pay television platform sold by Apple TV Channels, Amazon Channels and The Roku Channel. Each digital platform provides a library of video on demand content and live streams of the linear MGM+ television channels.
Background
has been involved in the pay television industry since the 1950s. From 1953 to 1961, Paramount owned Telemeter, an ambitious but expensive theater television system that transmitted using closed circuitry—as opposed to broadcast frequencies—over which customers could purchase broadcasts by inserting coins into a collection box.In April 1980, Paramount, MCA/Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures and 20th Century Fox partnered with Getty Oil to jointly develop a pay cable service to be named Premiere. The proposed channel would have maintained exclusive first-run rights to newer feature films distributed by each of the studios, along with carrying films cherry-picked from other studios without any exclusivity. Displeased that the venture would likely give the four studios disproportionate control of the pay television marketplace, Home Box Office, Inc., Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment and Viacom/TelePrompTer—then the respective owners of HBO, The Movie Channel and Showtime—proceeded to file an antitrust lawsuit against the studios with the U.S. Justice Department later that year. After reviewing the case, the Justice Department issued an injunction blocking Premiere's planned January 1, 1981, launch, deeming the venture to be an illegal boycott of the existing pay services that would subject them to possible financial damage if its presence resulted in price fixing of film titles. Paramount, MCA, Fox and Columbia decided to scrap the venture after the ruling was handed down.
In August 1982, MCA/Universal and Gulf+Western reached an agreement with Warner Communications to each acquire 25% interests in The Movie Channel, a struggling pay service then-owned by Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, a cable television venture of Warner and American Express, which would retain the remaining 25% share under the proposed collaborative venture. This proposal was driven by the studios wanting to increase revenue received from licensing their films to premium television services, and industry concerns that dominant premium service HBO would hold undue negotiating power for these rights through its acquisitions of film titles prior to their theatrical release. In January 1983, the proposal was amended to include Viacom International, which proposed to consolidate The Movie Channel and Showtime into one unit. Four of the partners would respectively own 22.58% of both networks, with American Express owning the remaining 9.68%. As with the earlier Premiere proposal, the Justice Department subjected the proposal to regulatory scrutiny as Warner, Universal and Paramount received 50% of their respective total revenue from film releases and licensing fees from premium services; the 30% share that would be held by the Showtime-TMC combination would have also formed an oligopoly in the pay cable market with HBO and Cinemax.
The proposal was revised twice to address these issues and others cited by HBO executives in responses to a civil antitrust lawsuit against the Showtime-Movie Channel merger that was filed by the Justice Department on June 10, 1983. This culminated in Paramount and Universal being dropped from the partnership in the final revision submitted on July 28, 1983; Warner Communications, Viacom and Warner-Amex became the only partners remaining in the proposal, which a Justice Department memorandum cited would "prevent any anti-competitive effect from arising," currying the department's formal approval of the proposal on August 13. Shortly afterward, Paramount signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Showtime, which had already maintained a licensing deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that gave the service exclusive pay cable rights to MGM's films.
Both of Showtime's tenures with Paramount ended in acrimony. In the spring of 1989, Paramount struck an exclusive licensing agreement with HBO; subsequently that May, Paramount filed a lawsuit against Showtime Networks, its parent Viacom, and the corporate parent of both entities, National Amusements over Showtime's alleged refusal to pay a total of $88 million in fees for five films—all of which had underperformed in their theatrical release—to reduce the minimum liability for its 75-film package from the studio. Showtime regained first-run pay cable rights to Paramount's films through a seven-year distribution deal signed in May 1995, in a byproduct of Viacom's merger with Paramount Pictures parent Paramount Communications the year prior; this agreement gave the services of Showtime Networks—Showtime, The Movie Channel and Flix—exclusive rights to all films released by the studio from 1997 onward starting in January 1998, following the expiration of Paramount's contract with HBO.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer signed an exclusive first-run premium cable rights agreement with Showtime in 1981, encompassing the studio's films and releases through its United Artists subsidiary; Showtime and MGM renewed this agreement in April 1985, September 1993, and in April 2000. The 2000 renewal deal also included a production development agreement to produce three original series—which would end up consisting of Dead Like Me, The L Word and the short-lived Barbershop: The Series—for Showtime between 2003 and 2007. By 2002, after that studio finished a long-term distribution pact with HBO and Cinemax, Lions Gate Entertainment joined Paramount and MGM as Showtime's major film suppliers. Paramount's distribution contract with Showtime expired in January 2008, three years after the original Viacom corporate structure was split into two standalone companies within the National Amusements umbrella: a successor entity that adopted the Viacom name, which took over Paramount's operations and select other divisions including the original entity's basic cable channels, and CBS Corporation, which—among the few properties it kept from its pre-split entity—retained ownership of Showtime Networks; MGM and Lions Gate's respective contracts with Showtime subsequently expired at the end of that year.
History
Development and launch
The formation of Epix was announced on April 21, 2008, after individual negotiations between Paramount Pictures, MGM, and Lionsgate with Showtime to renew their existing film output deals broke down; each of the three studios disagreed with Showtime over the licensing fee rates for which they wanted Showtime to compensate them to allow future releases to air on the Showtime Networks services. In December 2008, the three studios—which named their jointly owned holding company for the channel, Studio 3 Partners —selected the name Epix for their premium linear television and on-demand service; the partnership formally announced the launch of Epix at the National Association of Television Program Executives Convention on January 27, 2009. Mark Greenberg—who previously served as a marketing executive at HBO, executive vice president of Showtime, and managing director of management and consulting firm MSCGI —created the business plan and strategy, then partnered with the Lionsgate/MGM/Paramount consortium to build and launch the network. Greenberg served as the founding president and chief executive officer of Epix, leading it from its creation in early 2008 through its acquisition by MGM, until he stepped down after a nine-year tenure in September 2017.The network would focus on both recent feature films from Paramount, MGM/United Artists and Lionsgate as well as library content from each of the studios. Within weeks of its October 2009 launch, Epix signed exclusive first-run film content agreements with two additional studios: one with Samuel Goldwyn Films to broadcast a package of 20 recent and forthcoming theatrical movies from the studio, and another to carry a package of 22 recent and forthcoming feature films from independent film studio Roadside Attractions. Studio 3 Partners chose the Viacom subdivision MTV Networks to provide operational support, marketing services and affiliate distribution for the channel.
Though Epix was first announced by Studio 3 Partners as strictly a premium service, it eventually began to seek distribution as a hybrid premium/digital basic channel, although its programming would be presented without editing for airtime or objectionable content and without commercial advertising. The channel also reportedly sought a monthly license fee of $1 to $1.50 per subscriber from prospective providers. Epix reached its first carriage agreement on July 28, 2009, when it signed a deal with Verizon FiOS. In contrast, that August, two months prior to the channel's launch, three major pay television providers—cable providers Comcast and Cablevision, and satellite provider DirecTV—each formally announced that they would not carry Epix. DirecTV said regarding its decision not to carry the channel: "We think there are enough out there already, we don't see the value of adding another movie channel."
On August 28, 2009, Epix offered a free preview to Verizon FiOS subscribers, showing select films that would be offered by the channel upon its formal debut. During this preview, Epix added between five and seven movie selections every three days from the libraries of its three major studio backers, including the premium cable premieres of the 2008 releases Iron Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Cloverfield. On September 25, 2009, the channel announced plans to launch an expanded online video on demand service—to be known as the "Epix MegaPlex"—that began offering a minimum of 3,000 film titles beginning in the summer of 2010, in comparison to the approximately 200 titles that the basic Epix online VOD service would include in its library upon the streaming service's official October 2010 launch. Epix's online offering includes over 3,000 titles for streaming, available to all subscribers through the network's apps and Epix.com; as a result, Epix offers a wider library of movies for streaming than the combined offerings by the streaming service of its premium network competitors. The network continues to expand its VOD selection through cable, satellite and telco operators; however, it does not include more than 150 to 200 titles per month due to the bandwidth constraints of these systems.
The Epix television service officially launched at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time on October 30, 2009, on Verizon FiOS systems, becoming the first U.S. premium cable channel to debut since Liberty Media and Tele-Communications, Inc. launched Starz 15 years earlier on February 1, 1994. The first program to air on the channel was the film Iron Man, followed by the concert special Madonna Sticky & Sweet Tour: Live from Buenos Aires. Initially a single channel service, Epix was offered to subscribers of Verizon FiOS—which carried the channel for free during its debut weekend—for $9.99 per month. Epix also provided customers—including those that were not Verizon FiOS subscribers—free previews of the online service each weekend through the end of November 2009, permitting access to the website's film content using invite codes given on a first come, first served basis.