Amazon Is Hungry and Coming for Cable Channels
nbcnews.com
nbcnews.com
Their current biggest problem is that they have anything you can search for, so if you want to stream something for free, their search isn't that useful since it throws off false positives for a ton of stuff that you'd have to rent or buy.
Netflix wants to be mega-sized HBO, but having that much original content under one umbrella seems to be straining them - the signal-to-noise ratio is low, and I can't be bothered to sift through the number of originals they put out these days to find the interesting ones. Sub-channels that operate more independently to build individual reputations for genres or themes seems like a much better model.
Vue, Sling, DirecTV Now are hobbled by the fact that they're tied to the same original source restrictions as traditional cable, so you get commercials, "edited for content" versions of movies, and all that nonsense. Too many layers of indirection between them and the content makers.
Hulu has a good thing going with their own originals + HBO/Showtime add-ons, but their live TV offering seems like a confused step backward, since if you add that it introduces all of the above problems to part of the library. Soon you end up in the same place as Amazon's current problem of search being too cluttered with the wrong stuff.
I thought the same, but from a different angle. Traditional channels with commercials can be monetized by Amazon in a way the rest of the big 5 can't. Watching a commercial on an Amazon channel for a new brand of chips? "Alexa, get me some of those chips". Amazon knows what you're watching, what the commercial is, where you live, has your payment information, and has the fulfillment infrastructure. Boom. Buy the commercial, get your new chips in 2 days.
By turning commercials into trackable purchase events, Amazon might be able to better monetize traditional, commercial-ridden television than any other player. That includes existing cable providers (!).
On the other hand, this is a big step in the end of privacy and separation of data that I've been dreading since the early 00's (when I started to care about that).
Can't quite figure out if I'm more on the for or against side, but one thing is for sure: the mis-fires that are sure to happen at times will be full of giggles ... "Honey I swear I didn't buy that".
ESPN is singlehandedly keeping cable alive.
Amazon isn't the only culprit, both Netflix and Hulu do the annoying box with image scrolly interface (I assume for TV users). If you're on a computer, it's pretty intolerable.
I really wish they'd spin off AWS so I could invest in just that without also buying a piece of an overpriced grocery store and a mediocre television production company.
Google does the same using ad revenue.
A few billion to Google is nothing. Amazon probably would be smart to buy a lot of stuff using their stock right now...$470 BILLION. Those hard assets can always be sold later
Provide me with a service that lets me add HBO or Showtime to a Netflix-level interface, then we'll talk.
Prime video along with Amazon's free music and books offerings are just loss leaders for selling you the non free products in the relevant categories.
Amazon is still at its heart a store.
My family loves watching Mozart in the Jungle so every time a season comes out I get a fresh reminder of how bad their apps are on different platforms.
I think Amazon is trying to shift away from that approach with the push to get a "Game of Thrones" type show on Prime Video.
Here's Stratechery's take on it:
> ... focusing Amazon Prime Video on massive hits that break through into the popular consciousness rationalizes the service considerably. If the ultimate goal is signups, then by definition producing shows that everyone is talking about is more important than building out a fleshed-out content library. Netflix has to worry about having plenty of content to keep people coming back; Amazon has the rest of Prime to accomplish that.
From: https://stratechery.com/2017/amazon-studios-shifts-strategy-...
(that site is subscription-only, but I think there are quite a few subscribers here. If I'd seen non-paywalled analysis on this I'd link to it. Sorry if it's not kosher to post paywalled sites! Some of his other writing on Amazon is free to read.)
Even a lower middle class person can afford and justify both.
What these services compete against are the cable industry HBO and broadcast TV for your entertainment time (and budget but many folks I know have all/most of the services concurrently).
They should worry about YouTube more than each other.
It should also be noted that Roku offers a top level search function that will locate a movie in whatever service it's available.
Amazon is probably biting a bit more than it can chew.. I suppose they can afford to blow it Microsoft style the way MS does with their OS releases... every -other- Windows release is something people adopt, think NT4...XP...then 7...now 10... anything in between these sucked.
Must be nice to have money to throw away.
I also do not know if my girlfriend's account, who I "share" prime with, is also supposed to get access to it like it does now.
The whole prime = free 24h delivery is fine and that's what I pay it for and it's a great deal in my book, but all those asides prime thingy... Amazon needs to clear up what it contains and what it does not. Or maybe I just don't get it.
A simple modern example is being able to listen to the announcers of a sports match on radio or watch the same announcers via the television transmission.
Google defines a "simulcast" as a simultaneous transmission of the same program on radio and television, or on two or more channels.
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZNKX78/ [2]: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/.105749
I'm very ignorant of Japanese or Korean dramas/live-action programs.