The Amazon.com original series Transparent picked up two Golden Globe Awards Sunday, beating rivals such as HBO and highlighting the progress the online retailer has made as a player in Hollywood. The awards will likely encourage the Seattle-based e-commerce company and other online entertainment networks to continue investing in original programming.
A broad array of organizations in technology, media and other fields rallied on Monday behind Microsoft’s effort to block American authorities from seizing a customer’s emails stored in Ireland. The organizations filing supporting briefs in the Microsoft case included Apple, Amazon, Verizon, Fox News, National Public Radio, The Washington Post, CNN and almost two dozen other technology and media companies.
Amazon boss Jeff Bezos is primed and ready for a fresh assault on the streaming-video space. The e-commerce giant will roll out a new ad-supported streaming offering early next year that will be separate from its $99-a-year Prime membership, which includes a video service, sources say.
Amazon.com Inc. unveiled a media- streaming device that plugs into a TV set to let users browse video and music from Netflix, Hulu and Pandora, seeking to extend its reach in customers’ digital lives.
As video gaming grows into an online spectator sport, gameplay video feeds are becoming increasingly lucrative. Twitch had 55 million unique visitors in July, most of whom went to the Twitch.tv website to watch other people play games — competitions interspersed with advertising. “Broadcasting and watching gameplay is a global phenomenon and Twitch has built a platform that brings together tens of millions of people who watch billions of minutes of games each month,” said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
The long-time MTV Networks CEO will have a ringside seat at the transformation of media and retailing. Amazon reports in an SEC filing this morning that Judy McGrath was elected to the board yesterday, and appointed to the Leadership Development and Compensation Committee, effective Oct. 1. As an incentive to stay, she received rights to 2,520 shares convertible at a rate of 840 a year over three years beginning August 2015.
Exclusives
In a letter to the FAA, Amazon said it is developing aerial vehicles as part of Amazon Prime Air. The aircraft can travel over 50 miles per hour and carry loads of up to 5 pounds. About 86% of Amazon’s deliveries are 5 pounds or less, the company said.
Following the success of Netflix and a fresh push by Amazon in online video, the battle of the tech giants is now moving into television with Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL, among some of the latest players. These moves come as a growing number of consumers are turning away from traditional television to online services such as Netflix, and with those providers looking to draw viewers by offering new, and not just recycled programs.
The device, called Amazon Fire TV, will marry Amazon’s video library with content from other providers.
Netflix and Amazon are streaming-service rivals, but on Tuesday the two were united as defendants in a multimillion-dollar defamation and wrongful-termination lawsuit by a former employee of both companies. In his suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, which also names top Netflix execs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos as defendants, Jerry Kowal is seeking at least $1 million — and damages potentially worth millions more.
Spokeswoman Sally Fouts said Thursday that Amazon runs ads ahead of movie and game trailers, but the company has no plans to offer a free streaming media service. That was in response to a Wall Street Journal report that Amazon is considering an ad-supported streaming TV and music video service.
Amazon is getting ready to unveil its TV streaming device next week. Journalists are invited to a press event in New York next Wednesday.
Amazon will begin shipping its long-awaited video-streaming device in early April, through its website as well as retailers including Best Buy and Staples, said people familiar with the company’s plans. The Amazon device will carry a variety of apps available on Roku and Apple set-top boxes and run on a version of Google Android software, like Amazon’s tablet computers, these people said. Roku’s most popular apps include video services Netflix and Hulu Plus and music service Pandora as well as Amazon’s own video-streaming service.
Responding to a Wall Street Journal story that Amazon is considering a new online pay-TV service and has talked to at least three major media companies about licensing their channels, Amazon said “We continue to build selection for Prime Instant Video and create original shows at Amazon Studios, but we are not planning to license television channels or offer a pay-TV service.”
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Amazon has approached big entertainment companies about licensing their television channels for a possible new online pay TV service. WSJ subscribers can read the full story here.
Internet companies including Twitter, Facebook, Google and Amazon are blasting a federal judge’s decision allowing an Arizona-based gossip website to be sued for defamation by a former Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader convicted of having sex with a teenager. The companies warn that the ruling to let the former cheerleader’s lawsuit proceed has the potential to “significantly chill online speech.”
No Tough Questions For Bezos on ’60 Minutes’
If the ’60 Minutes’ segment Sunday night on Amazon had been a drone, you’d have to say it badly missed its target. Rieder argues the news program gave Amazon a prime platform, but no tough questions, especially about the numerous logistical and regulatory issues facing the use of drones.
Over the past year, Amazon.com has bolstered its streaming video library beyond typical movies and TV shows by locking down the exclusive streaming rights to such buzzed-about series as Downton Abbey, Falling Skies, Justified and Under the Dome. The Seattle-based company is hoping to now build hype — and attract subscribers — with its own shows. Amazon’s foray into original programming kicks off with Friday’s debut of the political comedy Alpha House, featuring Mark Consuelos, Clark Johnson, Matt Malloy and John Goodman as senators who live together.
Alpha House, which will have its premiere on Nov. 15, is the first attempt at original programming by Amazon.com. It’s a small bet by a very big company, but one that could create additional momentum for the further disruption of what we still call television but is quickly becoming something more complicated and interesting.
The original series field just got more crowded thanks to an Internet colossus used to doing things differently — and successfully. First up: John Goodman comedy Alpha House.
As local media companies eye the potential of big data for deepening their engagement with audiences and advertisers, they are learning just how messy, expensive, incremental and imperfect the process can be. In the first of a three-part special report on local media and big data, NetNewsCheck looks at the promise and challenges of this fast-changing field.
Amazon Studios boss Roy Price said in an interview last week that he’d love to figure out a way to get viewer feedback on show ideas before a pilot is even created.
Viacom is expanding a wide-ranging digital video deal with Amazon — just weeks after ending one with Amazon competitor Netflix. For Amazon’s Prime Instant Video service, Viacom will commit a broad selection of TV shows from Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., MTV and Comedy Central under a multi-year deal.
Amazon is planning to introduce a Kindle TV set-top box this fall that will stream video over the Internet and into living rooms. The move will accompany the likely release of an Amazon smartphone, according to sources familar with the project. It will allow Amazon to compete with Apple TV, Roku and the Boxee Cloud DVR, among other devices.
Online retailing giant Amazon.com Inc. aims to put a twist on the business with its own foray into original TV show production. Starting soon, it will debut 14 of its own TV show pilots on its website, allowing anyone from the U.S., U.K. and Germany watch them for free. The company will ask for viewer input, and hopes the comments and critiques will help decide which shows live or die.
There’s a wide field of players with no shortage of innovative — but often flawed — strategies. Here’s how they stack up.
Amazon’s production arm said Wednesday that it had ordered a children’s pilot called Sara Solves It, which was co-developed by powerhouse public TV supplier WGBH Boston and Out of the Blue Enterprises, a production company co-founded by Angela Santomero, whose credits include Nickelodeon’s long-running series Blue’s Clues.
Anthony Bay, global head of the company’s digital video division, will leave Amazon after a little more than a year at the company. The move follows Jim Buckle’s departure as head of LoveFilm, Amazon’s European-based streaming service.
