The parent company of Epix, MGM, was purchased by Amazon earlier this year for $8.5 billion; as a result, the cable network will change its name to MGM+ starting in January 2023. With the debut of a number of new shows and the third season of the drama Godfather of Harlem starring Forest Whitaker, Epix will officially launch its rebranding. Since MGM purchased Viacom and Lionsgate in 2017, Epix has been going through a time of transition, but this name will cause even more changes to the premium cable provider.
You could spend 5 years and $100 million trying to launch a new brand, but you wouldn’t have the brand equity that you get with MGM+, according to Michael Wright, the former president of Epix and current CEO of MGM+.
He said of the transition, “We have felt for some time that this is the best service that many people have never heard of. Other than individual shows, service has never been marketed. Hotel Cocaine, which will portray the Miami drug trade in the 1970s and 1980s, and Belgravia: The Next Chapter, which is a direct sequel to Epix’s miniseries Belgravia, which chronicled the nouveau riche of 19th-century London, are both coming from Godfather of Harlem producer Chris Brancato. Because MGM+ is the underdog, Wright said, “We’re less costly than everybody else, and that was by design.
So, we’re going to make it unmistakable, we’re going to provide you with a product that is genuinely premium, extremely high quality, and offer it at a price that you almost should try it at that price.” Wright described the target audience for MGM+ as “a certain addressable market of viewers who do not go to the movies as much as they used to. They are not as drawn to the big superhero movies or the big spectacle IP. They like that sophisticated, cinematic, adult contemporary storytelling, & that’s what we focus on.”
On January 15th, Epix will adopt the MGM+ moniker.