For example, Prime users can add Showtime or Starz for $8.99 a month. Once in the Amazon universe, cord-cutters can pay for streaming services separate from a traditional cable bundle. According to estimates from Consumer Intelligence Research, the number of Prime subscribers recently topped 100 million, and on average those customers spend about $1,400 per year, compared with about $600 per year for shoppers who aren't members.Īmazon is playing many games at once with media: It not only offers its own Netflix-like service but also its own streaming hardware - Fire TV devices - and connections to other content channels. The idea is to give users enough value that it becomes a hassle to ditch the hardware.Īmazon is so confident in Prime that last year it increased the yearly price to $119 from $99, the first hike since 2014. There's no doubt about it." Less threatening than AppleĪpple has a similar plan in mind with its yet-to-be-released streaming service, which will offer device owners free video and subscriptions to third-party cable channels, according to people familiar with the matter. "But five years from now, they're going to be one of the giants in media. "Amazon hasn't gotten to the place yet where it has put together all of the levers that would make the video opportunity great," said Fred Seibert, the founder of independent production studio Frederator Networks, which is launching the animated show Costume Quest on Prime Video on Friday. But the company's investments point to blending content and commerce in ways the world hasn't yet seen, eventually pitting Amazon against Apple and other tech giants for control of the home. So far, Amazon has used video primarily as a way to build Prime subscriptions. The company can afford to take a similar long view with its media business and try many different approaches. It's the main driver of the company's profitability, earning $7.3 billion on sales of $25.7 billion last year - about 70 percent of the company's overall operating profit on only 10 percent of revenue. AWS now dominates the industry with 34 percent market share. By the time the rest of the industry realized Amazon was on to something and raced to launch their own cloud competitors, the company had built a huge lead. Amazon Web Services launched in 2006 with simple hosted services targeted mostly at start-ups and companies with an experimental bent. Tolkien's people were flattered, though they also joked that Amazon delivered the home assistants to eavesdrop on the negotiations, two of the people said.īezos has always taken the long view when getting into new business areas. But just in case, to seal the deal, Amazon sent representatives of the Tolkien estate and its law firm, Greenberg Glusker, several crates of brand-new Amazon Echo speakers. The Tolkien estate was convinced that in promoting the series, Amazon could sell truckloads of Tolkien's fantasy novels, including "The Hobbit" and "The Silmarillion" as well as "The Lord of the Rings." During meetings with the Tolkien estate and publisher HarperCollins, Amazon's Sharon Tal Yguado, who was hired from Fox in 2017, demonstrated a near encyclopedic knowledge of Tolkien's characters, stories and geography, said the people, who asked not to be named because the talks were private.Īmazon's ability to connect content to commerce won over the Tolkien estate. The ultimate selling point, according to people with knowledge of the negotiations, related to Amazon's original business from over two decades ago: books. What it had was the richest person on the planet in CEO Jeff Bezos, a big "Lord of the Rings" fan, who was promising the Amazon Studios team a huge budget to nab the series, a prequel to Tolkien's "The Fellowship of the Ring."īut money alone wasn't going to separate Amazon from the pack - Amazon's $250 million offer wasn't even the highest bid for the show's rights, according to a person familiar with the matter. Personal Loans for 670 Credit Score or LowerĪnd not to be ignored, Apple was also in on the negotiations to acquire the rights for the upcoming TV show, according to people familiar with the matter.Īmazon didn't have much by way of Hollywood cred. Personal Loans for 580 Credit Score or Lower Best Debt Consolidation Loans for Bad Credit
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