Hollywood Studios Taking on Online Video
While sites like YouTube and Hulu may have rights to limited content from Hollywood, Studio 3 Networks plans to take online video to a new level with epix, a service that will offer in excess of 15, 000 films and television shows across multiple platforms.
This "next-generation entertainment service" is expected to launch as a premium movie channel in the fourth quarter of 2009 but will be offered to online subscribers first, with an expected Web launch in May.
"With epix, we are creating an entirely new category of entertainment service for consumers that is unlike anything that currently exists," said Mark Greenberg, President of Studio 3 Networks. "epix is the first brand to hold exclusive exhibition rights to movie content that can be delivered anywhere, anytime." While this is great news for Internet users, Greenberg told The Wall Street Journal that the Web streaming service is "not our primary business model."
