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June 04, 2013

Amazon Writes Largest Check to Date for Streaming Content

By Steve Anderson, Contributing TMCnet Writer

The idea of streaming television is winning plenty of fans, and plenty of people who enjoy having a massive slate of options available regardless of the hour and available as long as the bandwidth holds out. To that end, there have been several new alternatives to come online for streaming content, offering a variety of different programs, some of which can only be found at certain sites. Amazon offers one such service, and it recently wrote what's described as its largest subscription streaming transaction to date for a slew of new shows.



Amazon reportedly agreed to pay over $200 million for licenses to several Viacom (News - Alert) shows, mostly kids' content like “Dora the Explorer,” “Blue's Clues,” “Go Diego Go!” and several others. In total, the agreement gives Amazon access to a further 4,000 television episodes that are set to become part of the Amazon Prime Instant Video service, an all you can stream buffet of content available for $79 a year. Subscribers, meanwhile, also get free two-day shipping for anything purchased on the Amazon site.

In this case, it's likely a matter of Amazon taking advantage of recent developments in the market. Just days after Netflix lost access to the Viacom stockpile when its agreement with the company expired, Amazon is now stepping in to make up the lack. Amazon has been putting quite a bit of cash into augmenting its streaming video lineup, and kids' programming is a very big part of that. In fact, according to Amazon's vice president for digital video and music, Bill Carr, recently said that kids' shows were one of the most-watched program groups the service offered. With that in mind, Amazon's plans to augment its kids' show lineup makes a lot of sense.

But don't feel bad for Netflix; back in early May, Netflix and the Walt Disney (News - Alert) Company set out on a multi-year licensing agreement, and this is actually something of a continuation of earlier work the companies had done together. This gives Netflix access to a huge amount of Disney products, like “Handy Manny” and “Jake and the Never Land Pirates.”

This kind of arms race is likely to continue for some time; while the streaming sites are all showing at least some interest in developing programs internally, development is a long and often arduous process that can take some time to turn ideas into programs. Streaming platforms need content immediately in order to keep up with the competing platforms out there, and that means development can only be a backup plan in the short term. Sure, long term, it's a good idea—having shows that no one else does and that no one else can say what to do with is just plain smart—but in the short term, it's going to be ready to watch shows that take the catbird seat.

Still, between the need to keep up with the competition and the likely development to follow, it's likely going to mean very good news for those who like to watch television but aren't interested in paying cable networks big money.




Edited by Alisen Downey
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