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Prime Video

Type of business	Division
Type of site	Video on demand Digital distribution
Headquarters	United States
Area served	Worldwide (excluding Mainland China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria)
Industry	Internet
Parent	Amazon
Subsidiaries	Video Direct
Website	amazon.com/video www.primevideo.com
Alexa rank	533 (January 11, 2018[update])[1]
Registration	Required
Launched	September 7, 2006; 12 years ago (2006-09-07)
Current status	Active

Prime Video is an Internet video on demand service that is developed, owned, and operated by Amazon. It offers television shows and films for rent or purchase and Prime Video, a selection of Amazon Studios original content and licensed acquisitions included in the Amazon's Prime subscription. In the UK, US, Germany, and Austria, access to Prime Video is also available through a video-only membership, which does not require a full Prime subscription.^[2] In countries like France and Italy, Rent or Buy and Prime Video are not available on the Amazon website and Prime Video content is only accessible through a dedicated website. In some countries Amazon Video additionally offers Amazon Channels, which allows viewers to subscribe to other suppliers' content, including HBO in the United States.^[3]

Launched on September 7, 2006 as Amazon Unbox in the United States, the service grew with its expanding library, and added the Prime Video membership with the development of Prime. It was then renamed as Amazon Instant Video on Demand. After acquiring the local streaming and DVD-by-mail service LoveFilm in 2011, Prime Video was added to Prime in the United Kingdom, Germany and Austria in 2014, a move that angered some Prime UK members as the bundling was non-negotiable with a 61% increase in subscription fee.^[4]

In the UK, Germany, and Austria, Prime Video has been available on a monthly subscription of £5.99 or €7.99 per month, continuing the plan of LoveFilm Instant.^[5] The service was previously available in Norway, Denmark and Sweden in 2012, but was discontinued in 2013.^[6] On April 18, 2016, Amazon split Prime Video from Amazon Prime in the US for $8.99 per month.^[7] The service also hosts Amazon Original content alongside titles on Video as well.

On December 14, 2016, Amazon Video launched worldwide (except for Mainland China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria) expanding its reach beyond US, UK, Germany, Austria, and Japan. Among the new territories, the service was included with Prime in Belgium, Canada, France, India, Italy, Spain, Poland, and Brazil, while for all other countries it was made available for a monthly promotional price of $/€2.99 per month for the first six months and $/€5.99 per month thereafter.^[8]

History

The service debuted on September 7, 2006 as Amazon Unbox in the United States.^[9] On September 4, 2008, the service was renamed Amazon Video on Demand.^[10][11] As of August 2014 the service is no longer available for downloading purchased instant videos. On February 22, 2011, the service rebranded as Amazon Instant Video and added access to 5,000 movies and TV shows for Amazon Prime members.^[12][13] On September 4, 2012, Amazon signed a deal with pay-TV channel Epix to feature movies on their streaming service, in a move to rival their competitor Netflix.^[14] Additionally, in November 2013, Amazon premiered the comedies Alpha House and Betas, which are original series available exclusively online via the Prime Instant Video service. Amazon offered the first three episodes of both series at once for free, with each subsequent episode released weekly thereafter for Prime members.^[15]

In February 2014, Amazon announced that the streaming service of its UK subsidiary LoveFilm would be folded into the Instant Video service on February 26, 2014.^[16][17] In January 2015, Transparent became the first show produced by Amazon Studios to win a major award and the first series from a streaming video service to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy.^[18]

In 2015, Amazon launched the Streaming Partners Program (now known as Amazon Channels), a platform allowing subscription-based third-party channels and streaming services to be offered to Amazon Prime subscribers through the Amazon Video platform. These services are separate from the Amazon Video offering, and must be purchased separately. The original launch in the U.S. included services such as Curiosity Stream, Lifetime Movie Club, AMC's Shudder, Showtime, Starz, and others.^[19][20] The service subsequently added other partners, such as HBO and Cinemax, Fandor, PBS Kids, Seeso, Toku and Boomerang.^[21]

On July 30, 2015, Amazon announced that they had hired Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May to produce an untitled motoring show for Amazon Prime Video that would later be named The Grand Tour. Neither Jeff Bezos nor Amazon.com had stated how much Clarkson, Hammond, or May are being paid to produce the programme via their production company W. Chump & Sons, but Jeff Bezos stated that the deal was "very expensive, but worth it".^[22] The budget for the show has not officially been announced, but Andy Wilman, the former executive producer of Top Gear stated that each episode would have a budget of around £4.5 million, nine times larger than Top Gear's budget.^[23] Also in July, Amazon announced plans to expand the service into India.^[24]

In September 2015 the word "Instant" was dropped from its title in the US, and it was renamed simply Amazon Video.^[25] In November 2016, the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon was pursuing streaming rights to U.S. professional sports leagues to further differentiate the service.^[26][27][28]

Amazon announced in November 2016 that it planned to stream The Grand Tour globally, which led to speculation over whether the full Amazon Video service would begin a wider international rollout to compete with Netflix.^[29][30] On December 14, 2016, Amazon Video expanded into 200 additional countries.^[31]

In January 2017, Amazon announced Anime Strike, an anime focused Amazon Channels service.^[32] In May 2017, Amazon Channels expanded into Germany and the UK; in the UK, the company reached deals to offer channels from Discovery Communications (including Eurosport), and live/on-demand content from ITV.^[20][33]

In April 2017, Amazon began to make sports-related content acquisitions, first acquiring non-exclusive rights to stream portions of the NFL's Thursday Night Football games during the 2017 NFL season to Prime subscribers in a $50 million deal, replacing a previous deal with Twitter.^[34] In August, Amazon acquired the British television rights to the ATP World Tour beginning 2019, replacing Sky Sports. The deal will run until 2023 and will exclusively show all masters 1000 events and 12 500 and 250 series tournaments. Amazon will be the third party pay TV provider for the ATP finals and starting in 2018 for Queens Club and Eastbourne tournaments.^[35][36] The ATP announced a two-year deal in September for Amazon to stream the Next Generation ATP Finals.^[37] In November it was announced that Amazon had acquired the British television rights to the US Open for five years from the 2018 edition, for a reported £30 million. Eurosport who owned the pan European rights extended their deal with the US Open but excluded the UK, which was ironic as Amazon had reached a deal with the broadcaster to stream their channels on their station.^[38] The ATP additionally announced that Amazon in the US would screen the tennis channel, Tennis TV from 2018.^[36]

On January 5, 2018, Amazon announced that they will be terminating their Anime Strike and Heera services, merging their content with Prime Video.^[39]

In June 2018, it was announced that Amazon had secured the rights to broadcast 20 live Premier League football matches from the 2019-20 season on a three-year deal. The deal signifies a major shift in the way UK football fans will watch the Premier League, as this will be the first time that the league will be shown on a domestic live streaming service, as opposed to Premier League matches being shown exclusively on television.

Amazon Video, via sister company Amazon Studios, owns global television adaptation rights to The Lord of the Rings.^[40]

List of Amazon channels

Information

Video quality

Depending on the device, Amazon supports up to 4K (UHD) and High Dynamic Range (HDR) streaming. UHD/HDR rolled out with its original content.^[41] Other titles support 1080p (HD) streaming with 5.1 Dolby Digital or Dolby Digital Plus audio, with Dolby Atmos coming soon to certain titles. For titles available for purchase (and not included in a customer's Amazon Prime subscription), the HD option is often offered at an additional price.

Requirements

Amazon Video is available worldwide (except for Mainland China, Iran, North Korea, and Syria).^[8] Initially it was available only to residents of the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Germany and Austria,^[42][43] causing customers living outside Amazon Video's available countries to increasingly use VPN to get around the geographical restrictions.

Customers of Amazon Video can stream on the web using an HTML5 player (supported in Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer 11, Edge, Safari and Opera).^[44]

Amazon Video is available on Amazon's "Fire" devices, smart phones, tablets, PCs, and various TVs, Blu-ray players and consoles with a broadband connection. TVs supporting the service include LG, Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony. Sony TVs supporting Android TV include the Amazon Video app. Consoles supporting Amazon Video include recent PlayStation, Xbox, Wii and Wii U.

On October 1, 2015, Amazon announced that Chromecast and Apple TV products were banned from sale on its online marketplace effective October 29, 2015. Amazon argued that this was to reduce "customer confusion", as these devices do not support the Amazon Video ecosystem.^[45]

Devices

Awards and nominations

See also

• List of original programs distributed by Amazon

References

External links

• Amazon Video


• Prime Video