MGM's pay TV channel Epix launches Epix Now, a $5.99/month streaming service, available on iOS, Apple TV and Android, says it is coming to Roku and Fire TV soon
Cynthia Littleton / Variety :
Context & Ripple Effects
Epix has been building toward this for years: it added offline viewing to its mobile apps back in 2015, and just last month Roku's Roku Channel added Epix to its premium subscription lineup alongside Showtime and Starz. What changes now is ownership of the customer — MGM's network is going direct with its own $5.99/month app rather than renting shelf space inside someone else's bundle.
The price point is the story. Epix Now launches below Starz's $9 standalone service and Showtime's $11 offering, making it the cheapest of the three premium-network DTC plays covered here.
First-order effects
- Cord-cutters can now subscribe to Epix without a pay TV package for $5.99/month on iOS, Apple TV and Android — though Roku and Fire TV users, the largest streaming audiences, have to wait.
- Starz and Showtime face a new price floor: their standalone services now cost 50-80% more than a direct rival with comparable premium-network positioning.
Second-order effects
- Roku is put in an awkward dual role — it just started selling Epix subscriptions through the Roku Channel, and now competes with Epix's own app for the same subscriber while controlling whether and when Epix Now reaches Roku devices.
- Showtime and Starz face pressure to respond on price or bundle, since the cheapest premium network becomes the default add-on for budget-conscious streamers.
Third-order effects
- If every mid-tier cable network follows Epix into standalone apps, the durable winners are the device platforms and aggregators — Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV — that control discovery and billing across a fragmented field of $6-$11 services.
- Premium TV pricing stratifies into tiers set by content depth rather than channel heritage, eroding the assumption that legacy networks can hold $10+ monthly price points.
The trend: Mid-tier cable networks are racing to undercut each other with standalone streaming apps, ceding the real power to the device platforms that aggregate them.