Amazon quietly rebranded its Freevee live FAST channels as "Amazon Prime Video Channels" on its Fire TV OS platform earlier this week, igniting rumors that the Amazon might end the Freevee brand for good soon. 

AFTV News was the first to report the change, which seemingly rolled out Wednesday on Amazon’s Fire TV smart TV's and streaming gadgets.

We reached out to Amazon to confirm this speculation, but a company representative wasn’t immediately available for comment.

Also Read: Freevee Adds 31 NBCU Fast Channels

The news comes after a February report published by AdWeek indicated that Amazon was planning to sunset the FAST brand. Amazon denied the report. Amazon converted its entire Prime Video streaming kingdom to partial ad support back in January. Streaming pundits have noted the redundancy of Freevee following this shift. 

If Amazon decides that it no longer needs a standalone FAST service, the on-demand content on Freevee would likely live as a free tier of Prime Video.

Amazon would hardly be the first company to consolidate its streaming offerings, after Disney announced plans earlier this week to jettison multiple on-demand apps for channels like ABC, Freeform and FX in an effort to push customers towards Disney Plus.

Warner Bros. Discovery also announced earlier that month that it would be shutting down its kids’ streaming service Boomerang, and transition its content to Max.

It’s likely a move to cut down on the redundant back-end costs generated by hosting a number of small apps, as streaming services struggle to turn a profit and shut down viewer churn.

Currently, all of Freevee’s channels are already available to access within the Amazon Prime Video app.

Amazon has pulled back from a plan announced back in January to infuse $115 million in cash into bankrupt regional-sports-network operator Diamond Sports Group, Sports Business Journal reports. 

Last week, Diamond announced deals with the NBA and NHL to keep 13 and nine teams, respectively, from each league on its Bally Sports channels through the 2024-25 season. And after passing a major pay TV carriage hurdle with Comcast late last month, it appears Diamond now has what it needs to finally emerge from Chapter 11 restructuring, regardless of Amazon's decision. 

Also read: Everything You Need To Know About the Bally Sports Bankruptcy

Amazon declared its intention to invest in Diamond before it signed a $1.93 billion-per-season national TV contract with the NBA … and also prior to its signing a deal with Rogers Communications to sublicense Monday-night NHL games in Canada. 

Amazon had seen Bally Sports as an entry into both leagues. 

Meanwhile, Diamond's position with the NBA and NHL has also diminished. 

Going forward, the RSN will no longer have the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and New Orleans Pelicans in the fold, with both franchises refusing to take a haircut on their rights. Some NBA teams agreed to rights fee reductions of as much as 40% to keep Bally Sports and Diamond solvent.

Meanwhile, the NHL’s Florida Panthers and Dallas Stars have also recently fled their respective Bally Sports channels. 

Amazon Prime Video’s unlikely international hit Citadel will gestate two spin-off series, the Italy-set Citadel: Diana, and the India-based Citadel: Honey Bunny.

The original Citadel, produced by the Russo Bros. with a $300 million production budget, was Amazon Prime’s second most expensive endeavor ever next to its Lord of the Rings-based Rings of Power.

Also Read: Amazon Studios Exec: 'Jaded' U.S. Audiences Just Need Time to Warm Up to 'Citadel'

In early June of 2023, Citadel generated a less than stellar domestic performance, earning a 51% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes and failing to crack any weekly Nielsen audience rankings following its release. On high-profile U.S. TV critic even called the series a "disaster." 

Based on what it said was a much warmer foreign reception -- but not releasing any supporting audience data -- Amazon defiantly renewed the second season of Citadel and revealed the first Citadel universe spin-off, an Italian series titled Citadel Diana, which will bow Oct. 10.

Diana will be the first addition to the universe when it arrives, and will follow undercover agent Diana Cavalieri (Matilda De Angelis) as she attempts to escape from the enemy syndicate.

Citadel: Honey Bunny is set in ‘90s India, and will premier globally on Nov. 7.

The spin-off will be directed by Raj & DK and executive produced by the Russo Bros’ independent production firm, AGBO.

Watch the trailer for both series below.

To paraphrase John Goodman in the 2014 remake of The Gambler, David Zaslav and Warner Bros. Discovery are now treating the NBA like they are “not gentlemen” ... and that they are both “very, very stupid." 

On Friday, the media company made good on legal threats made less than 48 hours earlier, filing suit against the league in New York State Supreme Court. 

WBD also issued this statement: “Given the NBA’s unjustified rejection of our matching of a third-party offer, we have taken legal action to enforce our rights. We strongly believe this is not just our contractual right, but also in the best interest of fans who want to keep watching our industry-leading NBA content with the choice and flexibility we offer them through our widely distributed WBD video-first distribution platforms — including TNT and Max.”

The 29-page lawsuit, filed by WBD and its Turner Broadcasting System unit, is heavily redacted. And it was filed under seal from the public. However, Next TV was able to obtain a copy of the legal complaint. 

The complaint accuses the NBA of breaching its 2014 TV deal with Warner when it entered on Wednesday into an 11-year deal with Amazon that pays the online retail giant an average of $1.8 billion a season. 

WBD contends that legacy deal, which expires after the upcoming 2024-25 NBA season, gave it the right to match any rival offer for renewal. Within the filing, Wallach also found a copy of that earlier media rights deal, which includes a “matching rights” provision that’s about 20 pages long. Daniel Wallach, an attorney who writes about legal matters for The Athletic, shared a court link to this legacy deal. 

“TBS, now a WBD subsidiary, has been telecasting NBA games for nearly 40 years and is considered an ‘Incumbent’ under the language of the October 2014, ten-year NBA/TBS Agreement (together with all exhibits, the 'Agreement,’ attached hereto as Exhibit 1). As an ‘Incumbent,’ TBS has the right to match any “Third Party Offer” for future NBA telecast rights,“ WBD said in its lawsuit.

“TBS timely exercised these matching rights by accepting a Third Party Offer on the same material terms and conditions that the NBA was willing to accept from Amazon. The NBA, however, has breached the Agreement and deliberately refused to honor TBS’s rights, forcing TBS and WBD to seek judicial intervention,” the suit added. 

The suit marks a long, slow and … well, almost seemingly stupid degradation of a fruitful and decades-long partnership between Warner and the NBA, one that gestated the enduringly popular studio show that serves as the de facto voice and conscience of the league, Inside the NBA. 

On Wednesday, the NBA said it had inked an finalized an agreement to keep games on The Walt Disney Co.’s ABC and ESPN, as well as return them to NBCUniversal, which had a landmark NBA broadcast run in the Michael Jordan-led 1990s. With a new streaming-focused window for Amazon carved out, the 11-year arrangements collectively will pay the NBA around $77 billion. 

Not bad for anyone not named the NFL. 

The data visualization experts at @SportsBall posted via X a pretty cool graphic that shows how the three rights packages are distributed:

But Turner and WBD were left out. NBCU ended up getting a package that sort of looks like what TNT has under the current deal, but Warner and TNT Sports are going after the cheaper package carved out for Amazon. The streaming-focused rights grouping seems like an odd mix for still-linear-focused TNT, with a lot of it centered around the November frame of the new In-Season Tournament leading into Black Friday in late November, Amazon's biggest profit period. 

Amazon will also serve as a international distribution mechanism for the league, which described the online retailer’s role as a “third-party global destination” for NBA League Pass

So, yeah, again, it seems a little … stupid that anyone else besides Amazon would pay billions of dollars or this package after letting the other one go to NBCU.

TMT watchers generally trace the dissonance between the league and the media company back to 2022, when CEO Zaslav famously and clumsily declared, "We don't need the NBA." 

On Thursday, paywalled Puck’s John Ourand published some forensics on this dialectic gone bad, chronicling the broader spectrum of ’missed signals, bad communication and frustrated dealmaking“ that culminated in a lawsuit. Zaslav is described as viewing himself as a defender of the Hollywood guard against the Silicon Valley barbarians. (Editor’s thought: Yeah, maybe this was a viable role 10 years ago?)

The NBA still has one season left on TNT as part of the legacy deal. Let's just say in advance that will be interesting. 

Setting up what seems more and more like a legal battle with its soon-to-be-former pro sports league broadcast partner, Warner Bros. Discovery's TNT unit said Wednesday that it indeed matched a TV rights offer made by Amazon and that the NBA has no right to reject it. 

Also read: NBA Says Warner 'Didn't Match the Terms' of Amazon's Proposal, Enters Long-Term TV Deal With Online Retail Giant

"We have matched the Amazon offer, as we have a contractual right to do, and do not believe the NBA can reject it," TNT's statement reads. "In doing so, they are rejecting the many fans who continue to show their unwavering support for our best-in-class coverage, delivered through the full combined reach of WBD’s video-first distribution platforms — including TNT, home to our four-decade partnership with the league, and Max, our leading streaming service. We think they have grossly misinterpreted our contractual rights with respect to the 2025-26 season and beyond, and we will take appropriate action. We look forward, however, to another great season of the NBA on TNT and Max including our iconic Inside the NBA.”

On Wednesday, the league announced that it officially signed new national TV deals with Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon that will pay the league $77 billion over 11 seasons, starting with the 2025-26 campaign. 

In so doing, the NBA seemed to shut the door on a fruitful partnership with TNT that started in 2007 and included the launch of the long-running and very popular Inside the NBA studio show. 

"Throughout these negotiations, our primary objective has been to maximize the reach and accessibility of our games for our fans,“ the NBA said in a statement. “Our new arrangement with Amazon supports this goal by complementing the broadcast, cable and streaming packages that are already part of our new Disney and NBCUniversal arrangements. All three partners have also committed substantial resources to promote the league and enhance the fan experience."

Starting two years ago, when he took over as CEO of the combined Discovery and Warner Media operations, David Zaslav took a hardline negotiating position, even declaring at one point, "We don't need the NBA." 

WBD was unable to come to terms with the league during an exclusive negotiating window for TV rights incumbents in March. And by signing deals in recent months to license French Open tennis matches and sublicense College Football Playoff games, it was largely assumed by TMT industry watches that heavily indebted WBD was moving on from a bidding process that was too rich for its blood. 

However, surprising a lot of folks, linear TV-focused WBD made a late play for the newly carved out window set aside for Amazon -- a package seemingly designed for streaming, and which included far fewer games than TNT's incumbent rights package. 

Here's how Amazon Prime Video's $1.8-billion-a-season rights package shapes up:

* Amazon will distribute 66 NBA regular-season games on Prime Video each season, including Thursday night doubleheaders beginning in January, Friday evening doubleheaders, select Saturday afternoon games, at least one game on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving), and the Quarterfinals and Semifinals in the Knockout Round of the Emirates NBA Cup. In addition, Prime Video will stream the Championship Game of the Emirates NBA Cup.

* Prime Video will also distribute all six SoFi NBA Play-In Tournament games. In the playoffs, Prime Video will stream approximately one-third of the first and second rounds each year. Additionally, Prime Video will stream one of the two Conference Finals series in six of the 11 years on a rotating basis with NBCU, beginning with the 2026-27 NBA season.

 * Amazon will distribute NBA games globally as part of Prime Video, with an expanded package of games in select territories, including Mexico, Brazil, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom and Ireland. This expanded package includes a minimum of 20 additional primetime regular season games each year, a Conference Finals series each year, and the NBA Finals in six of the 11 years.  Prime Video will also become the NBA’s strategic partner and third-party global destination of NBA League Pass,  the league’s live NBA game subscription service, with expanded distribution rights for NBA League Pass in the U.S. and internationally.  Additionally, as part of the agreement, Prime Video will stream half of all NBA Summer League games as well as a package of WNBA and NBA G League regular-season and postseason games.

The NBA said Wednesday that Warner Bros. Discovery's latest TV rights bid didn't match an earlier $1.8 billion-a-season offer made by Amazon, and that the league has entered a "long-term arrangement" with the online retail giant. 

Updated: Warner's TNT unit subsequently disputed this claim, saying in its own statement that it matched Amazon's bid. “We think [the NBA has] grossly misinterpreted our contractual rights with respect to the 2025-26 season and beyond, and we will take appropriate action,” Warner's TNT says in its statement.

“Throughout these negotiations, our primary objective has been to maximize the reach and accessibility of our games for our fans,“ the NBA said in a statement. “Our new arrangement with Amazon supports this goal by complementing the broadcast, cable and streaming packages that are already part of our new Disney and NBCUniversal arrangements. All three partners have also committed substantial resources to promote the league and enhance the fan experience.

“We are grateful to Turner Sports for its award-winning coverage of the NBA and look forward to another season of the NBA on TNT,“ the league added. 

Also Read: Warner Bros. Discovery Says It Matched NBA Rights Offer

In a separate statement, the National Basketball Association said it had officially signed new 11-year TV contracts with The Walt Disney Co., NBCUniversal and Amazon, leaving longtime incumbent WBD and its TNT Sports division, formerly known as Turner Sports, out in the cold after this season, the final year of the current deal. 

The statement from the NBA comes two days after WBD put out its own message, saying it had matched Amazon's offer to assume what is essentially a new slice of the NBA's national TV rights pie. 

“‘We look forward to the NBA executing our new contract,” the media company said Monday.

The league didn’t explain exactly what was in Amazon's offer that wasn't in Warner's. But Wednesday’s door slamming seemingly ends an historic run for the league on TNT and its long-popular Inside the NBA studio show. 

Also remaining unclear: Whether WBD CEO David Zaslav and his legal team will peacefully agree with the NBA’s definition of “matching offer.”

As for the new contracts, the league will collect $77 billion over the next three years. Here's how it divided its assets among the three media-tech giants:

• Disney’s ESPN and ABC remain the home of the NBA Finals, Christmas Day contests, ESPN games on Wednesdays, NBA Saturday primetime on showdowns on ABC, and NBA Sunday Showcase packages. Disney is paying a reported $2.6 billion a season for those rights.

• NBCU, under a $2.5-billion-a-season arrangement, will telecast the NBA's Opening Night and a new Sunday-night primetime package on and Tuesday regionalized games, on both NBC and Peacock. There will also be Peacock games on Mondays, and NBCU gets the NBA All-Star Game. Under the same negotiations, NBCU also carved out a new window with the WNBA that will see it broadcast more than 50 regular-season games and the first round of the playoffs on NBC, USA Network and Peacock. NBCU also has the WNBA Finals in 2026, 2030 and 2034, and it gets the league semifinals for seven seasons between 2026 and 2036. 

• Amazon Prime Video will stream the SoFi-sponsored NBA Play-In Tournament, as well as the Emirates-branded tournament championship, called the NBA Cup. Amazon will also stream games on Thursday and Friday nights, and serve as “strategic partner” and “third-party global destination” of NBA League Pass. Amazon secured an WNBA window as well. 

“The digital opportunities with Amazon align perfectly with the global interest in the NBA,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement.  “And Prime Video’s massive subscriber base will dramatically expand our ability to reach our fans in new and innovative ways.”

Of the NBA returning to NBC for the first time in more than 20 years, Silver noted, “The return of NBA basketball to the NBC Sports family comes with enormous benefits and excitement for our fans. And through its multiple platforms — especially NBC and Peacock — and its expansive resources, NBCUniversal promises to build on the deep tradition and history of the NBA on NBC.”

Added Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBCU Media Group: “With a unique presentation plan across NBCUniversal platforms during the regular season and postseason, as well as the midseason tentpole All-Star Game and events of All-Star Saturday, we have a strong slate that will help supercharge our overall content strategy across the portfolio." 

Added ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro: “The NBA is a vibrant, ascendant league and through this premium collection of rights, including every NBA Finals on our platforms, we will continue to evolve together while successfully navigating the global digital transition and delivering the highest quality coverage for fans.”

Amazon Prime Video has acquired Bray Film Studios, the historic U.K. studio complex where The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power filmed its second season.

Amazon did not reveal how much it paid for the facility, which includes nearly 54,000 square feet of production space across five stages.

Amazon MGM Studios plans to produce both new and returning content at the studio site.

“With Bray as our creative home in the UK, we are committed to deepening our relationships with the UK creative community, which is rich with world-class storytellers and creative talent of all kinds,” said Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios. “The acquisition of a studio with such a storied heritage not only empowers us to produce more film and television in the UK, but also unveils a wealth of opportunities in the local community with respect to jobs and skills training at all levels of the production process.”

Bray is just the second UK production site to be owned and operate by a U.S. studio, after Warner Bros. acquired Watford-based Leavesden Studios in 2010.

The purchase marks Amazon’s second studio presence in the U.K. (alongside its long-term contract at Shepperton Studios), with Bray set to serve as the film site for the second season of the Russo Brothers’ Citadel in September.

The studio facility, located about 26 miles from central London in Berkshire, saw a period of inactivity from 2010-2017 before reopening to film the BBC series Bodyguard.

Bray Studios has since hosted projects including Rocketman, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, The King’s Man, in addition to its classic titles like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Mummy, and Ridley Scott's Alien.

The news comes just six months after Amazon submitted a written proposal to the U.K. Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee, urging the British government not to impose policy changes or additional costs on the production landscape.

“It’s important for policymakers to appreciate that it’s much easier to change the location of a production than it is to relocate for other parts of the economy,” Amazon said in its letter.

Netflix commissioned its highest number of new titles since the third quarter of 2021, while Amazon Prime Video set an all time record for its quarterly content production, according to a report from Ampere Analysis.

In fact, Netflix and Amazon commissioned more than half of all global SVOD original titles in the first financial quarter of 2024, the research company said. 

Ampere noted that the trend was spurred by investment in global content, with both Netflix and Amazon ordering the majority of their originals outside the U.S.

Also Read: Netflix Tops Among ‘Must-Keep’ TV Brands for Fifth-Straight Year

“The market saturation in North America, the growing cost of production, and the lingering impact of the Hollywood strikes have pushed Netflix and Amazon to increase investment in international productions to stimulate subscriber growth,” Mariana Enriquez Denton Bustinza, senior researcher at Ampere Analysis, said in a statement.

“While several studio-backed SVODs have made cutbacks internationally,” Bustinza added. “These two streaming giants are doubling down on their localized global strategy.”

In fact, Ampere predicts that Netflix and Amazon’s international content spending, which has already increased sizably over the past few years, will continue to rise as streamers look to combat slow domestic growth expanding internationally.

"For Netflix, this means catering to a broad subscriber base while leaning on markets whose productions offer the greatest potential for crossover appeal," Bustinza added. "Meanwhile, Amazon’s approach remains more heavily targeted towards key markets such as India, while it leverages its global position to expand further into the theatrical market to generate downstream revenues from its platforms.”

In fact, Ampere claims that Netflix’s Western European commissions already almost achieved parity with North American titles for the first time in Q1 2024.

Asia-Pacific titles also saw a significant increase in popularity, led by India, South Korea and Thailand.

Netflix, which announced in April that it would reduce the quantity of expensive big-budget films it releases, has reportedly upped its international movie orders to compensate in territories like the Nordics, Asia-Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa.

That makes sense, as a report in June by analytics firm Omdia indicated that, in some international regions like South Korea, Netflix content that's shot locally can attract nearly three times the viewership of English counterparts.

As for Amazon, the majority of its international commissions during the first quarter of 2024 came from India, with 37 total titles.

That’s more than the previous six quarters combined, and a 32% increase from Amazon’s Indian slate in Q2 2022.

After securing a two-year deal with the NHL and Rogers Communications to launch its "Prime Monday Night Hockey" live-game franchise in Canada next season, Amazon continues to put pucks in nets, as the cliche the players like to say goes.

The tech giant on Wednesday announced a new partnership with the National Hockey League and Box to Box Films, producer of Netflix's popular Formula 1: Drive to Survive, to create a new "action-packed" behind-the-scenes docuseries focused on pro hockey players, coaches and their teams. 

The series will feature in-depth interviews with notable players, their rivals and those in their closest inner circle -- teammates, coaches, and family. Star players followed in the series include Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid; Florida Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk; New York Rangers captain Jacob Trouba; Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl; Boston Bruins teammates David Pastrnak and Jeremy Swayman; Vancouver Canucks captain Quinn Hughes; Vegas Golden Knights forward Jack Eichel; Toronto Maple Leafs forward William Nylander; Nashville Predators forward Filip Forsberg; and Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog, among others.

“This is so meaningful for our league. Box To Box has revolutionized modern storytelling for Formula 1, golf and tennis,” said  Steve Mayer, NHL chief content officer and senior executive VP, in a statement. “With the full support of the League, players, coaches and owners, we welcome the opportunity to showcase our stars and the greatest season and postseason in sports – the Stanley Cup Playoffs – to a global audience.”

This upcoming show will mark the fourth original hockey program Amazon has produced with NHL Productions for Prime Video. In 2021, All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs multi-episode docuseries chronicled the team’s 2020-21 season. This season, original hockey documentaries Chosen One: Alexandre Daigle and Saving Sakic premiered on Prime Video in Canada to critical and fan acclaim.

The sports docuseries has been a winner for rival streaming company Netflix. Not only has Drive to Survive carved out a productive audience niche over six seasons, Netflix has more recently established a new NFL-centric behind-the-scenes franchise with Quarterback, as well as the upcoming Receiver. 

Then there's HBO's seminal NFL docuseries Hard Knocks, which will kick off its 19th season in August profiling the Chicago Bears' training camp.

Like an NBA team deciding how to defend an unstoppable opponent, a popular narrative has emerged that Warner Bros. Discovery is in a pick-your-poison scenario, whereby it either has to overpay to match Comcast NBCUniversal’s rival $2.5 billion-a-season bid for NBA rights or face a bleak future in which its TNT loses one of the most vital live sports packages. 

But reading between the tea leaves Thursday during WBD’s first-quarter earnings call with investors, a third option may have emerged: Warner and TNT Sports could merely match the $1.8 billion bid put forth by Amazon. 

“We’ve had a lot of time to prepare for this negotiation, and we have strategies in place for the various potential outcomes,” WBD CEO David Zaslav told equity analysts. ”However, now is not the time to discuss any of this. Since we are in active negotiations with the league and under our current deal with the NBA, we have matching rights that allow us to match third-party offers before the NBA enters into an agreement with them.”

Calling it “the nuclear option,” the New York Post pondered an outcome whereby WBD blocks Amazon instead of Comcast NBCU. A source familiar with the negotiations told Next TV such a scenario is indeed possible, given that WBD has such "strong backend rights."

Last week, it was revealed that the NBA had reached an agreement in principle with Disney/ESPN, which will see the annual average price for its current NBA games package -- which includes the NBA Finals — increase from $1.4 billion to $2.6 billion, starting in the 2025-26 season.

The NBA also reached agreement on a basic framework with Amazon, creating a third partnership for national TV rights. 

Meanwhile, Comcast stepped in, rendering an aggressive $2.5 billion bid to poach the NBA rights package WBD has controlled since 2007. On Thursday, Sports Business Journal reported that Comcast and NBCU are now in the "drivers seat" on securing a third NBA national TV package, and that WBD would have to come up with around $2.8 billion a season to retain these rights. 

Matching Amazon’s bid would increase WBD’s annual payment to the NBA well above the $1.2 billion a season it’s paying in its current contract. But the price bump would be far less than trying to match Comcast’s insurgent bid. 

Certainly, an outcome that sees WBD take Amazon’s rights package would not sit well with the league, which reportedly covets the opportunity to work with a big technology company. And it might not sit well with Amazon, either, which would certainly seem to have the resources to up its bid, if necessary. 

And it’s unclear at this point what game assets sit in the rights package earmarked for Amazon, but it is known to be significantly less robust than the NBA package TNT currently enjoys. Notably, TNT would lose the All-Star Game, something that could become an issue in pay TV affiliate negotiations. 

In the background are the complications created by Zaslav, who notably said on several occasions in the run-up to renewal negotiations that WBD didn't need the NBA. 

Amazon Prime Video, which only began integrating ad-support in January, now has 85% of its user base on its partially advertising-based tier, according to newly published data from Hub Entertainment Research. 

This compares to only 22% for Netflix, which launched its ad-supported tier back in November 2022. 

The key difference, as Hub points out, was execution of the strategy -- in order to avoid being defaulted into Amazon's ad-supported tier, Prime members have to make the proactive account-settings change within the app to pay an additional $2.99 to avoid commercials. 

It's the other way around for services like Netflix, where users choose to save money by switching to the commercial-laden tiers. 

“Virtually overnight, Amazon Prime Video dramatically transformed the video advertising ecosystem,” said Mark Loughney, senior consultant for Hub, in a statement. “Suddenly advertisers have the ability to reach tens of millions of viewers on one platform, with robust targeting capabilities and a vast retail capability. Amazon has immediately launched themselves into ‘must buy’ territory for advertisers and media agencies.”

For its latest Quarterly Churn Tracker, Hub surveyed 6,338 US consumers age 16-74, who watch at least one hour of TV per week, from January - March. 

Notably, with the shift of the second largest U.S. subscription video platform to partial ad support, the percentage of domestic SVOD users who stream only commercial-free video dropped 9 percentage points from the fourth quarter to the first quarter, Hub added. 

Meanwhile, Hub also found that at least early on, strong-arming its users into watching commercials hasn't harmed Amazon Prime Video's market share within the  U.S. SVOD business. 

“I wanted to make sure I covered my ass.” 

That was how NBA playing legend Charles Barkley, star of the popular TNT studio show Inside the NBA, explained a clause in his current 10-year deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, which lets him opt out of the deal if the conglomerate loses rights to the NBA starting in the 2025-26, when the league's new national TV deals take hold. 

Making the media rounds Wednesday, Barkley hopped on the phone with ESPN 850 AM radio in Cleveland to discuss his situation. 

Also read: Are Kenny, Chuckster and 'Inside the NBA' Moving to Amazon?

Barkley recounted that as he and his agent negotiated a deal that will reportedly pay him upwards of $100 million, "I said wait a minute. If you guys lose the NBA, I wanted to make sure I could get out of there."

The erstwhile “Round Mound of Rebound” said he and his backers expected either Apple or Amazon to enter the bidding fray.

“We didn't know NBC was going to come out of the woodwork,” Barkley noted.

It was Amazon that secured a new slice of the NBA’s national TV deal, agreeing to a basic framework with the league last week. With fellow national rights incumbent Disney/ESPN already locking down a deal in principle, TNT Sports parent WBD must surpass a reported $2.5 billion-a-season bid from Comcast NBCUniversal if it’s going to hold onto an NBA national TV contract its had since 2007.

It's unclear as to the “opt-out” capabilities of Barkley’s Inside the NBA castmates, Ernie Johnson, Kenny “The Jet” Smith and Shaquille O’Neal. On Thursday, the Sports Business Journal's Tom Friend reported that Johnson, who also works Turner Networks' coverage of the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament, as well as play-by-play for Major League Baseball games, would stay behind in the event of an NBA exodus from WBD. 

But Barkley seemed emphatic and enthusiastic about moving his TNT post- and pre-game studio show to Amazon if it comes to that.

“I love TNT, and they’ve been great to me,” Barkley said. “But it's like Neno Brown said in New Jack City, ‘It’s always business, never personal.’ ”

Mixing the old-world distribution moxie of broadcast syndication with the new realm of FAST streaming, Amazon MGM Studios said Wednesday that Sox Entertainment has secured the off-network run of Judy Justice in more than 100 markets via station groups including Nexstar, Sunbeam, Cox Media, Weigel and Mission Broadcasting starting next fall. 

Also read: Scott Koondel Wants To Change Syndication Forever, Starting With ‘Judy Justice’

Sox CEO Koondel has been shopping Freevee's iteration of Judy Sheindlin's second-act court series to the broadcast syndication market for two seasons. The show sold to TV stations in all-barter deals, according to sources.

After wrapping up a 25-year run of the wildly successful first-run strip Judge Judy in October 2020, Sheindlin transitioned to a new iteration of her reality court show on free, ad-supported Freevee in March 2021. It’s expected there will be around 400 episodes of Judy Justice in the can by the time it launches in syndication next fall. 

”Having firmly cemented her place as an icon of broadcast television, Judge Sheindlin took a pioneering risk bringing her new show and brand to a then-nascent service,” said Lauren Anderson, head of AVOD, unscripted, and targeted programming, Amazon MGM Studios.

Judy Justice joins CBS Media Ventures’ new game show The Flip Side, hosted by Jaleel White, as syndication's new fall entries. Debmar-Mercury's proposed new talker starring I Can See Your Voice's Ken Jeong was pulled from the marketplace after Fox renewed Warner Bros.’s Jennifer Hudson for a third season, limiting the quality time slots that would have been available to Jeong. Warner Bros. this week also renewed entertainment magazine Extra for season 31.

Sinclair and its bankrupt Diamond Sports Group unit reached a deal that could keep Diamond’s ailing Bally Sports regional networks alive beyond 2024.

Sinclair will initially give Diamond $495 million to settle their lawsuits. Sinclair expects to get more than $200 million of that back from a richer management service agreement, substantial tax benefits and receiving other assets.

Combined with a $115 million minority investment from Amazon, disclosed in the deal's term sheet, Diamond should be able to pay $350 million to senior creditors who wanted to liquidate Diamond after next year, emerge from bankruptcy and continue to run the RSNs as an independent company.

Amazon and its Amazon Channels store will become the primary place to access the Bally Sports Plus direct-to-consumer apps, bolstering its presence in the sports business.

Amazon has an option to invest another $50 million in the new company, according to the term sheet distributed by Diamond.

The regional sports business has been under pressure as cord-cutting has reduced the number of pay TV viewers, slicing distribution and advertising revenue.

Sinclair went heavily into debt when it paid $9.5 billion for 19 Fox regional sports networks. The seller was The Walt Disney Co., which acquired the RSNs when it bought 21st Century Fox, but was forced by regulators to shed them because it also owned ESPN.

Diamond was unable to pay both its creditors and the teams whose games it televised. It sought bankruptcy court protection in March and has been able to shed money-losing deals with some teams.

Diamond sued Sinclair, trying to claw back $1.5 billion in management fees it paid to the broadcaster as it was going under.

The new restructuring support agreement will end the rhubarb and enable Diamond to operate a hybrid business.

“Diamond was paying over $2 billion indeed to the leagues. The RSNs can’t generate enough revenue for the teams only being on cable,” one source familiar with the talks said. “They definitely can’t [by] going exclusively DTC. Diamond will be able to make money on cable, make money on DTC with streaming and put a number of games on broadcast, some on Sinclair stations.”

On top of that, the deal is important to Sinclair because preserving the RSNs is important to maintaining the cable bundle that generates millions in retransmission payments to Sinclair and other station groups.  

“The RSNs are really one of the backbones of the cable package,” said a source familiar with the talks. “The RSNs shutting down would not have been good for anybody. This is good for the industry.”

Without the RSNs, cord-cutting would accelerate, leaving Sinclair’s stations with far fewer pay-TV subscribers.

The deal will have to be approved by the court. 

"We are thrilled to have reached a comprehensive restructuring agreement that provides a detailed framework for a reorganization plan and substantial new financing that will enable Diamond to operate and thrive beyond 2024," Diamond CEO David Preschlack said. 

“We are grateful for the support from Amazon and a group of our largest creditors who clearly believe in the value-creating potential of this business,“ Preschlack said. “Diamond’s near-term focus will be on implementing the RSA and emerging from bankruptcy as a going concern for the benefit of our investors, our employees, our team, league and distribution partners, and the millions of fans who will continue to enjoy our broadcasts.”

A new deal will have to be worked out between Sinclair and Bally and new, long-term deals will have to be reached with pay-TV distributors, including Comcast, which currently carry the RSNs under short-term deals.

The National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League gave Diamond one-year deals with reduced rights fees in order to stay on the air in the short-term, but are open to longer-term deals, according to a source.

Some NBA and NHL teams have already moved a handful of games to broadcast TV and others like the Phoenix Suns and the Las Vegas Golden Knights have moved all their games to broadcast.

Sinclair had a more adversarial relationship with Major League Baseball.  

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred noisily balked at giving streaming rights to Sinclair and the RSNs. In bankruptcy, Diamond opted to reject its deal with several teams, including the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks, because Diamond claimed it was losing money televising games.

Bally Sports currently has nine MLB teams under contract for the 2024 season, including the Los Angeles Angels, Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals, Detroit Tigers, Florida Marlins, Kansas City Royals, Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays. Those teams are expected will be paid the rates agreed to before the bankruptcy filing for the 2024 season. It is less clear what will happen to several other teams on Bally sports, including the Texas Rangers, the Cleveland Guardians and the Minnesota Twins.

Manfred also initially balked at Amazon’s attempt to get streaming rights to MLB teams by investing in Diamond, saying that if Amazon wanted those rights, it would have to negotiate with MLB, which has designs on creating its own streaming packages.

Also Read: MLB Hires Regional Sports Net Execs To Start Local Media Unit

Baseball would find it difficult to launch its own local streaming product because some of the most attractive teams have already done streaming deals including the New York Yankees (via YES Network), Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers, one observer noted. And Diamond will be retaining its rights to the Atlanta Braves.

Although Sinclair took the RSNs off its books last year, the bankruptcy and lawsuits created an issue that hung over the company. “This deal allows Sinclair to move forward,” an observer noted.

"Overall, the settlement does clear the decks for Sinclair to focus on Broadcast and Ventures, and refinancing debt,” Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall said. 

"Diamond has been a dark cloud over Sinclair for years now,“ Cahall said. “While this marks the end to the legal liability, we think Sinclair’s broadcast retrans rates suffered from deals that include the RSNs historically. Sinclair is now trying to get those rates closer to market at a time when MVPDs are fighting back harder, and more broadcast content is moving to streaming (especially sports).”

Sources said Sinclair could get a piece of the RSN business if the deal fuels a recovery in the business.

Sinclair stock rose 17% to close at $16.05 a share Wednesday.

Amazon will lay off several hundred employees in its streaming and studio divisions as well as subsidiary Twitch in order to reduce costs amid the latest in a wave of video industry contraction.

Twitch, the video live-streaming company acquired by Amazon in 2014 will cut just over 500 roles, or 35% of its workforce, according to a blog post by Twitch CEO Dan Clancy. Prime Video and MGM Studios will eliminate “hundreds” of jobs, according to an email sent by management to employees on Wednesday morning.

“Despite these efforts, it has become clear that our organization is still meaningfully larger than it needs to be given the size of our business,” Clancy said. “[The] decision, while incredibly difficult and painful, is necessary to ensure that we can continue to serve our streamers sustainably without impacting their ability to support their careers on Twitch.”

Added Mike Hopkins, senior VP of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studio, in his separate company email address: “We’ve identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas while increasing our investment and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the most impact ... Our prioritization of initiatives that we know will move the needle, along with our continued investments in programming, marketing and product, positions our business for an even stronger future.”

Amazon said that the layoffs will be completed by the end of the week.

The cuts come just weeks before Amazon is set to roll out a new ads initiative for subscription-based Amazon Prime Video service, requiring users to pay an extra $3 per month to avoid them. 

These ads could boost annual revenue by as much as $5 billion, according to a Bank of America Analysis. Ads on Amazon’s streaming service will start appearing in North America on Jan. 29 and internationally on Feb. 5.

Amazon has spent recent years aggressively pursuing the growth of its media division, including the $8.45 billion acquisition for MGM in 2021 and over $1 billion in payouts to individual content creators by subsidiary Twitch last year. Later, it was revealed that Amazon had grossly overvalued MGM's content library, which was re-assessing it at $3.4 billion, according to a March 2022 10Q filing.

Amazon has ramped up its streaming offerings as part of its Prime package in recent years, which charges for expedited shipping and other perks.

But last year, Twitch also laid off 400 people as part of overall Amazon cuts. And in December, announced it would shut down its service in South Korea because of “prohibitively expensive” costs.

Amazon last year cut more than 27,000 jobs, part of a record-breaking wave of U.S. tech layoffs that followed industry over-expansion during the pandemic.

In total, the media industry shed over 21,000 jobs last year, the highest total for the sector since 2020, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

Amazon’s shares were up 1.6% in afternoon trading. Twitch has also seen recent viewership increases. 

“While the Twitch business remains strong, for some time now the organization has been sized based upon where we optimistically expect our business to be in three or more years, not where we’re at today,” explained Clancy in his statement. “As with many other companies in the tech space, we are now sizing our organization based upon the current scale of our business and conservative predictions of how we expect to grow in the future.”

Sometime later this month, Amazon is going to blow up the TV ad market. It already told everyone it’s going to do it, and yet few people in the industry seem all that concerned.

The deal is that Amazon plans to flip a switch and turn Prime Video’s default mode to ad-supported, forcing anyone who wants to remain ad-free to spend an extra $3 a month to do so. 

Our TVREV estimate is that at best, 30% of Amazon Prime subscribers will bother to upgrade, leaving around 70% of Prime’s approximately 165 million U.S. subscribers in the ad-supported bucket. That’s around 80 million U.S. subs, give or take 10 million in either direction.

Why so vague? 

Two reasons. 

First, Amazon does not release its subscriber numbers. The most we’ve gotten from them is a 2021 statement that Prime has “over 200 million” subscribers.

Second, and far more importantly, it’s impossible to know how many people have Prime because of the free two-day delivery, how many have it because of the video, and how many have it because it has both.

This means that whether they have 50 million ad-supported Prime subscribers or 100 million, not all of them are actually watching Prime Video.

Nielsen’s The Gauge seems to bear this out — Prime’s November market share, according to the monthly Nielsen tracker, was 3.4% of U.S. streaming viewing, which puts it far behind Netflix at 7.4% and slightly ahead of Hulu at 2.7%. (It is also worth noting that Prime Video’s numbers are likely higher than usual right now thanks to Thursday Night Football.)

But that’s not why Amazon is about to blow things up.

The reason is that, even if we go for the very low-end estimates and assume that Prime will have 60 million ad-supported U.S. subs and that half of them will actually watch something on Prime Video, that is 30 million ad-supported subscribers, which will put them at about 3 times the number of ad-supported subscribers Netflix has.

And the thing about Amazon, of course, is the massive amount of data it has for advertisers. Amazon knows exactly what you’ve bought. It knows what you’ve searched for. And it knows what you’ve put in your cart and then deleted.

In practical terms, this means that there is going to be a massive pool of new connected TV inventory, all of it running against high-quality programming.

That is going to shake things up and then some.

First off, many big national advertisers have been hesitant to spend big bucks on FASTs because they see those services as analogous to cable — great places to get extra reach, but not exactly a showcase for their latest $20 million commercial.

Amazon, however, can give them slots on its original series. They’re slots that, due to the size of Prime Video’s audience, will reach many more viewers than slots on other ad-supported streaming services (Hulu being the possible exception here).

That’s for the big national advertisers.

Amazon has also launched a self-service business, aimed at the sort of small and medium businesses that sell their products on Amazon. This additional inventory, which can be geotargeted for local advertisers, will likely help the self-serve business to take off as well, given Amazon’s superior targeting capabilities and ability to steer companies that already spend money on search advertising on Amazon to this new TV product.

Which will, of course, have shoppable ads, something Amazon showed off during its Black Friday NFL game between the Jets and the Dolphins. Reaction seemed relatively positive, and the functionality gives Amazon yet another reason to nudge small and medium businesses to try TV.

Then there’s sports.

While the numbers still lag behind broadcast, Amazon is already seeing bigger Thursday Night Football audiences this year. That’s a trend that is likely to continue.

There are rumors this week that Amazon is looking to bail out Diamond Sports in exchange for streaming rights. That will open up massive new inventory — almost all of it local — along with a slew of new viewers, many/most of whom were already Prime subscribers, just not Prime Video viewers.

Finally, there’s Freevee, Amazon’s FAST service. The line between Freevee and Prime has always been murky, given that Freevee options come up when you search on Prime and I suspect few people realize they are two different services.

The assumption is that inventory on Prime Video and Freevee will be interchangeable and that Amazon will sell against both. That means advertisers will also be able to reach non-Prime subscribers, too. Not that there are all that many of them, but still, it’s a way for Amazon to expand its reach.

There are still some unanswered questions — when will Amazon make the switch, how difficult will it be to upgrade to ad-free (I’m thinking “very”) and how will the ads run against originals, e.g. will they all be preroll?

But those are all minor factors in what promises to be a very major disruption. Stay tuned.

Amazon is in talks with bankrupt regional sports networks subsidiary Diamond Sports Group about a possible multiyear investment and streaming partnership, the Walls Street Journal reported. 

Under such an arrangement, Amazon Prime Video would become the exclusive streaming home for regular-season, non-nationally-televised games played by nearly 40 Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association and National Hockey League teams remaining under the Diamond's Bally Sports umbrella. 

WSJ quoted a "source with direct knowledge on the matter," but neither Diamond or Amazon have officially commented on any of this. 

Also read: Amid Diamond's Apparent Detente With MLB, Twins Return to Bally Sports Remains Doubtful

Diamond was set up by its now estranged corporate parent, Sinclair Broadcast Group, after Sinclair paid $10.6 billion to purchase 19 regional sports networks from Fox back in 2019. 

Several years, a few questionable Sinclair stock buybacks and numerous quarters of massive cord-cutting later, the Diamond subsidiary found itself mired in more than $8 billion of debt, its channels generating only a fraction of their previous margins. 

Diamond entered Chapter 11 way back in March, hoping to leverage its teams into renegotiating deals and forking over streaming rights. 

By fall, with nary a viable restructuring plan in sight, Diamond and Bally Sports appeared destined for liquidation. Diamond suffered alienated league constituencies, notably MLB, seemingly ready to move onto alternative local TV arrangements. It also had to renew pay TV carriage with Comcast, DirecTV and Charter Communications, a prospect that appeared dim given the market and Diamond's seemingly soft leverage.

But lately, things have been looking up for Diamond. 

It was able to sign short-terms deals with the NBA, Comcast and DirecTV that got it a lot closer to buying another year of life. Those prospects got a whole lot more solid late last week, when the MLB agreed in mediation to a framework that would keep 11 teams currently still under contract in the Bally Sports fold through the 2024 season. 

Diamond's ongoing fate had largely been written off after that, most notably by its estranged parent, Sinclair, which is currently fighting its spun-off subsidiary in court over things like management fees. Sinclair's lawyers even told federal bankruptcy judge Chris Lopez last week that Diamond better cough up the management fees it allegedly owes Sinclair now because the broadcaster doesn't believe its subsidiary will be around much longer. 

Of course, a major backing from Amazon, which is looking for ways in to live sports, could change Diamond's trajectory in a dramatic way.

And it could also be a game-changer for live sports, with Amazon capturing a fairly large piece of live-sports access for relatively not that much money. 

Where there's a will, there's a way, of course, and Amazon has both.

For its part, Amazon recently paid the NFL $100 million just to stream one regular-season game on Black Friday. 

Each week, Next TV writers Daniel Frankel and David Bloom engage in a text chat about the TMT industries. This discussion is vitally interesting to at least three people in the global population. Are you one of them?

Daniel Frankel: Hello, David. Hope you had a good holiday. Great Thanksgiving weather out here in the SoCal high desert town of Indio. But we still stayed inside and did what we were supposed to do — watched a lot of football on TV. Nice rout by your Missouri Tigers of Arkansas Friday. (it was either watch a midtier SEC game that I had no connection to whatsoever or talk to my in-laws again.) And a turkey NFL game on Amazon between the explosive Miami Dolphins and the not as dynamic New York Jets, who are winding down yet another season rendered hopeless by quarterback Zach Wilson’s … inabilities. Beyond the young Wilson’s obvious limitations, there was a lot of talk about how ingenious Amazon was to pay $100 million for that single game, which served as a Black Friday funnel for its broader retail platform. My question about all of that is, how do we really know? 

David Bloom:  It has been a gratifying holiday, with the Tigers capping a marvelous season with a blowout win, a fabulous Thanksgiving meal with friends in the canyons of Los Angeles, and cabin time in the mountains far above your “high” desert. But that Amazon game poses a near unsolvable problem: how do we evaluate the deal? Outsiders keep applying traditional metrics to the tech giants’ online video hobbies, saying they don’t add up. But trillion-dollar tech beasts clearly don’t use such prosaic things as traditional metrics. As with algebra, we need to solve for X (the mathematical variable, not the lame social-media outlet). Apple spends $250 million on Martin Scorsese’s Flowers of the Killer Moon, then debuts it to a thudding $23 million. But that’s fine! Apple TV Plus will get some glitz when it eventually runs there as a secret miniseries (don’t tell Marty), and there’s probably some other stuff. Alphabet drops $15 billion for NFL Sunday Ticket. But that’s fine! It’ll encourage more YouTube TV subscriptions, attract advertisers and probably some other stuff. And then there’s Amazon. For $1 billion a year, they brought a fresh look to a tired Thursday-night format. But they still can’t fix Thursday night’s traditionally terrible matchups. 

Now they’re innovating with this additional Black Friday game for an absurd amount of money, plus pricey shoulder programming like a Garth Brooks concert. Will Amazon make back that $100 million, plus all the production costs?  Amazon sold ad spots for double their Thursday rate, at $880,000 for 30 seconds, Ad Age reported. And Amazon used the entire telecast to sell more stuff on its own platform on what’s still the year’s biggest shopping day. But would it have been more efficient to take, say, $50 million and buy ads on everyone else’s games and shows and concerts? Could they have made nearly as much money, and saved a bunch more? Will we ever see a true accounting? What’s X? Only Andy Jassy knows. 

Frankel: Meanwhile, there are some metrics we do know ... and just don't seem to talk much about, for whatever reason. Take NBC's primetime Saturday night Big Ten Football schedule this season. Only 2.45 million viewers, on average, watched Wisconsin beat Nebraska last week in prime time. NBC is paying $350 million a season for the package ... and there’s no “Black Friday” discount there. I’m headed to the Rose Bowl in a few hours to watch UCLA play Cal. I don’t have a dog in that hunt, but it’s the last regular-season Pac-12 game ever in this town. Maybe USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington will reinvigorate Big Ten football on TV, but it certainly seems like NBC — and CBS, which also paid $350 mil per season — got had.

Bloom: I think a late-season matchup between Nebraska and Wisconsin is a great one … in 1994. That year, Nebraska won the first of three national championships under Tom Osborne, while the Badgers were an extremely respectable 8-3-1 in Barry Alvarez’s fifth season as head coach. Of course, the schools wouldn’t have played each other in the regular season. Nebraska was still in the Big Eight, which that year said it would merge with half the collapsing Southwest Conference to become the Big 12 in 1996. Nebraska wouldn’t move to the Big Ten until 2010, after Osborne retired, served three terms in Congress and then retired completely. All of which is to say that college teams have been moving around like Garry Kasparov chess pieces for a very long time. 

As for market metrics on the latest college sports chess moves, what else could the three media companies financing the Big Ten deal do to grab a reliable, substantial, tune-in audience that advertisers love? Pretty much nothin.’ And the arrival of the four highly regarded West Coast schools makes the deal even better, with a continent-wide footprint in TV markets from L.A. and Seattle to Chicago, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. It also gave the Big Ten an excuse to end its two-division format, which put three powerhouse programs in the East and a bunch of fading weak sisters in the West. Now there’s a chance for more good matchups pretty much most of the season. By 1994 metrics, those rights deals might look wildly overpriced. By the ugly realities of broadcast TV in 2024, they’re looking better and better, or at least less bad.  

Frankel: I don’t know that even by 2024 standards that a 1.3 million rating in primetime is worth $350 million. But we'll see how realignment shakes out. No choice! Moving on, interesting quote from an institutional investor this past week about Elon Musk and the ongoing fiasco surrounding his X/Twitter ownership: “I've never had this with any company I've ever invested in ever in my life where the CEO of the company himself does so many detrimental things that [are] destroying the brand,” said Ross Gerber, head of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, to Yahoo Finance. Meanwhile, there’s lots of regard and concern for Linda Yaccarino from her peers to get out while the gettin’s good -- advice she seems to have ignored. What’s in her head that’s not in ours?

Bloom: It’s possible the formerly esteemed Yaccarino has fallen into the Elon Musk equivalent of Steve Jobs’s infamous Reality Distortion Field. Inside the field, rational thought struggles. Is it really OK for your CEO and chief shareholder to repeatedly post or repost dumb antisemitic spew that once again spooks big-name advertisers, costing your company millions of dollars in revenue? In Elon’s RDF, it is! Yaccarino’s pals are right to be concerned about her burning through decades of goodwill. She is! But whenever she escapes Elon World, perhaps when X is down to an enterprise value of $12.59, or somehow becomes that do-everything app only Elon seems to want, she’ll venture back into the real world. People will look at her with a mix of curiosity and pity, shake their heads and say it really wasn’t her fault. And then she’ll get on a couple of corporate boards, buy another house in the Hamptons and/or Malibu, and laugh about it all with friends over a glass of really good Barolo or Bordeaux. I mean, we’ve all had that friend who disappeared for years into a bad relationship before reemerging, blinking, back into our lives. It’ll happen for Linda too. 

At least the Yacster is getting paid for her X dalliance, presumably quite a lot. What’s the excuse for everyone else who’s still using X, maybe even paying to be there? What about the hand-wringing liberals, journalists, politicians and others similarly situated who are devoting countless hours there, effectively propping X up? The Hamas-Israel disaster seemed to pull everyone back into old, unhealthy habits like serial posting, doom-scrolling and flame wars with chatbots, disinformation saboteurs and other random disagreeable trolls. It’s like a bad paraphrase of Brokeback Mountain: they just can’t quit X, even if there’s no good reason to still be there. 

The Writers Guild of America has reportedly sent a letter to Amazon Studios threatening the company with a lawsuit if it doesn't re-start several shows that were shut down during the 148-day Hollywood writers strike that ended in late September. 

According to The Ankler — which (successfully, it seems) employed a PR firm to get a little aggregation traction for its big scoop — the WGA accuses Amazon of violating the agreement that ended the strike by not reopening writers’ rooms to series including the Marvel and Sony co-production Silk: Spider Society that were initiated before the WGA strike started in early May.

The Ankler said the WGA sent the pub this statement:

"WGAW has notified Amazon Studios that their failure to recommence a number of writing rooms after the strike is a violation of the Strike Termination Agreement (STA) between the WGA and AMPTP and Article 7 of the MBA. Studios are obligated to return writers to work 'upon termination of the strike,' and writers’ Personal Services Agreements were extended for a period equal to the portion of the contract term that elapsed during the strike. The Guild will bring legal action against Amazon and any other studio that violates the STA to recover compensation, interest on late payments, and benefit contributions due as a result of the delay."

An Amazon press rep told Next TV the company has no comment. 

Amazon Ads has announced Sponsored TV, a self-service ad system that will allow brands of all sizes that sell goods on Amazon to reach more customers using Amazon’s streaming TV services.

Sponsored TV is an expansion of Amazon’s Sponsor Ads product, which highlights products in online searches, and will help marketers place ads on Amazon Freevee, Twitch and streaming channels offered through Fire TV apps.

The new offering was announced Wednesday at the Amazon Ads unBoxed conference for advertisers in New York.

Small and medium-sized brands have been a source of revenue growth for TV advertising, with many companies, including The Walt Disney Co. and NBCUniversal, courting smaller firms and setting up self-service mechanisms to make it easy for companies familiar with digital advertising to plan and execute television campaigns.

“TV is an important brand-building strategy and should not be out of reach for any brand of any size,” Ruslana Zbagerska, VP of Amazon Ads, told Broadcasting+Cable. 

Sponsored TV was developed to remove barriers companies saw preventing them from advertising on TV. There are no minimum spending levels and no upfront commitment and Amazon will help adapt the creative assets brands have — or help them create new ones if they've never used TV advertising before.

“Sponsored TV is a new streaming TV ad solution that helps brands connect with their audiences on the largest screen in the home. This includes brands that are new to advertising," Zbagerska said. "Sponsored TV campaigns provide efficient reach powered by our machine learning optimization models, enabling brands to benefit from Amazon's first-party shopping and entertainment signals to create relevant ad experiences for viewers.” 

Amazon has been growing its TV advertising business with Freevee and Fire TV. Amazon has also announced plans to show ads on Amazon Prime Video, but Zbagerska declined to speculate about whether Prime Video inventory would be available via Sponsored TV in the future.

Marketers would want to put money into streaming TV, rather than linear TV, because viewers are spending more time with connected TV and streamers tend to be more attentive, Zbagerska said, pointing to research that found ads on Freevee generate three times more attention than on linear TV.

Amazon can also boost engagement with its interactive ad formats.

Small and medium-sized brands can often be intimidated by the cost of TV advertising, and don’t have the understanding of how to measure the value to justify the spend, she added. With sponsored TV, Amazon will be providing those tools.

Zbagerska would not say if small self-service advertisers would get the same pricing larger ad buyers get. "We will deliver tons of value, both for our brands and for or viewers," she said.

Also Read: GroupM Sets Up System for Evaluating Ads on Amazon

Amazon is able to produce ads for new TV advertisers using its creative studio and AI tools. 

With Sponsored TV, it should not be much more difficult to create a streaming TV campaign than on online campaign for Amazon customers. “The self-service tool is quite simple. In several clicks, you can create a net new campaign,”  Zbagerska said.

Sponsored TV campaigns benefit from machine-learning-powered optimization models informed by Amazon’s first-party shopping and entertainment data. Brands can engage with audiences likely to be interested in specific types of content, including cooking and home-improvement programming, and reach audiences interested in products in categories sold in the Amazon store.

Amazon has run beta tests of Sponsored TV with a number of Amazon clients, with successful results. In one case a client saw a forty-times increase in branded searches using streaming TV than it had with web advertising alone.

“TV advertising is no longer just for the big brands,” said Patrick Miller, co-founder of Flywheel, a digital commerce consultant that works with Amazon sellers. “With self-serve buying and closed-loop measurements, Sponsored TV makes streaming TV advertising a cost-efficient option for emerging and enterprise brands that want to connect the entertainment and shopping journey for customers.”

Amazon is indeed interested in poaching NBA rights from incumbents Disney/ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery, according to a Front Office Sports report, which cites anonymous sources.

According to the site, Amazon, which is averaging an impressive 12.9 million viewers per Thursday Night Football installment this season, wants to create a dedicated Tuesday or Thursday night slot for live NBA coverage. 

This revelation (confirmation?) comes after an "industry conference" last year, during which NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said he was “fascinated” with what Amazon Prime Video was doing with its 11-year, $1-billion-a-season commitment to the Thursday Night Football package, which has a median viewer age that is seven years younger than the typical NFL TV audience. 

With the NBA's current national TV deals with Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery expiring after the 2024-25 season, the league will reportedly seek between $50 billion - $75 billion combined for its next long-term national TV agreements. 

Eleven months ago, fiscally conservative WBD CEO David Zaslav indicated that his conglomerate might balk on a marked increase to the $1.2 billion-a-season rate it pays the pro basketball league for TNT's TV rights, pointedly remarking, "We don't have to have the NBA."

Meanwhile, Disney disclosed financial data last week showing that ESPN profits are down 8% this year alone. 

Both Disney and Warner have exclusive negotiating rights with the league through early next year. And Warner just launched a $9.99 live-sports extension for its Max subscription streaming platform, with the NBA at the center of it. But there's no guarantee that either media company will be able to "match up" with the length and the heft that the NBA might demand, at least not in a way that maintains the current paradigm of only two national TV rights partners. 

According Front Office's sources, the NBA could negotiate deals with three to five media rights partners this time around, all with the goal of maximizing rights fees for its next deal.

Amazon is certainly in the race. Amazon Prime Video VP and head of sports, Jay Marine said earlier this year that the company will continue to pursue NBA and other live sports rights in an “aggressive” yet “rational” way.

“Sports are unique; they are uniquely viable,” Marine said. “Because of that, they’ve also been uniquely expensive. Having said that, they can do things that other things can’t because it’s a guaranteed audience.”

Notably, Amazon has already secured a multi-year partnership with the NBA to broadcast live games on Prime Video in Brazil.

Amazon will undoubtedly have competition, with Comcast recently said to be in the NBA rights hunt, as well. 

Amazon responded today to a lawsuit filed by the FTC and 17 states that alleges the company abused its market position to inflate prices, stifle competition and overcharge sellers.

“The lawsuit filed by the FTC today is wrong on the facts and the law,” said Amazon Senior VP of global public policy David Zapolsky, in a statement. “The practices the FTC is challenging have helped to spur competition and innovation across the retail industry.

“If the FTC gets its way the result would be fewer products to choose from, higher prices, slower deliveries for consumers, and reduced options for small business," Zapolsky added.  “The opposite of what antitrust law is designed to do … We look forward to making that case in court.”

The FTC and states allege that Amazon uses so-called anti-discounting measures to punish sellers for offering prices lower than Amazon, burying lower-priced goods until they become effectively invisible.

“The upshot here is that Amazon is a monopolist and it’s exploiting its monopolies in ways that leave shoppers and sellers paying more for worse services,” said FTC Chair Lina Khan, who rose to prominence for her Yale Law Journal entry, "Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.”

Also among the key complaints were Amazon’s expensive fulfillment and advertising fees required for sellers to market their goods on the platform. According to the FTC, sellers are paying as much as $1 to Amazon for every $2 they make.

Independent sellers make up as much as 60% of Amazon’s online retail business, according to the company. In the first half of 2023, these retailers collected a 45% cut of every sale made by U.S. sellers.

“In a competitive world, a monopoly hiking prices and degrading service would create an opening for rivals and potential rivals to come in,” Khan wrote. “But Amazon’s unlawful monopolistic strategy has closed off that possibility, and the public is paying directly as a result.”

The FTC alleges that by flooding search results on Amazon with “pay to play ads,” the shopping experience is degraded as they steer consumers toward more expensive and less relevant products.

The FTC didn’t discuss any potential solutions to Amazon’s market dominance, but says they are primarily seeking to hold the company liable.

Since its founding in 1994 Amazon has exploded into an industry-spanning giant, acquiring healthcare provider One Medical, film and television studio MGM and high-dollar supermarket chain Whole Foods.

Amazon in the past has also expanded its hold on the retail market by acquiring rival retailers like Diapers.com and Zappos.

Read the full complaint and Amazon's response.

Amazon’s bundling of multiple services, including its Prime Video streaming service, has drawn the ire of the Biden administration, which said the company has almost singlehandedly monopolized the online retail market and wants a court to remedy that through potential forced divestitures, monetary relief and more.

The Federal Trade Commission, joined by 17 attorneys general, filed suit Tuesday (September 26) against the Big Tech behemoth, charging that the online retail and tech company “is a monopolist that uses a set of interlocking anticompetitive and unfair strategies to illegally maintain its monopoly power.”

“Amazon fuses together a wide assortment of unrelated services ranging from streaming video, music and gaming to prescription drugs and more to the unlimited shipping services included in Prime — and through it, to Amazon’s monopoly online superstore,” the FTC said in a complaint filed with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

“This case is about the illegal course of exclusionary conduct Amazon deploys to block competition, stunt rivals’ growth and cement its dominance,” the FTC said.

The FCC is asking the court to break up that monopoly, asking it to “put an end to Amazon's illegal course of conduct, pry loose Amazon's monopolistic control, deny Amazon the fruits of its unlawful practices and restore the lost promise of competition.”

The Computer & Communications Industry Association, an industry group whose whose members include Amazon, fired back at the suit.

“In an environment of ever-rising prices and persistent product scarcity, the FTC is bringing a case against a wildly popular brand best known for getting low-priced goods to your doorstep, by tomorrow,” CCIA said. “This case is out of touch with the concerns of everyday consumers.

“Smart antitrust policy happens when regulators focus on consumer harm, rather than targeting innovative sectors where customers are satisfied,” the group continued. “The FTC’s case would result in fewer products to choose from, higher prices for consumers and reduced options.” 

When FTC chair Lina Khan was sworn in in June 2021, more muscular oversight of Big Tech and tougher antitrust enforcement appeared to be in the offing, given her history of criticizing the market power of Big Tech.

Khan was the lead counsel on a House Antitrust Committee investigation into Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple that concluded that those companies had captured control of key distribution channels and function as internet gatekeepers, including by buying up potential competitors.

Nielsen today told clients that it will not be using first-party data from Amazon in the ratings used for buying and selling commercials during NFL Thursday Night Football.

Nielsen had a meeting with the Media Rating Council on August 30 about getting accreditation for its plan to integrate Amazon data into its already accredited panel-based rating system.

The MRC had questions about Nielsen’s methodology and it was not accredited.

"Our work with Nielsen on the integration of first party data sources into its national measurements is ongoing.  MRC has not accredited these, and the official status remains “in process," the MRC said in a statement.

While the Amazon data is not included in the panel-based measurement, which Nielsen has designated as its approved product to be used as an ad-buying currency, the Amazon data is being included in Nielsen’s big-data audience stream.

Nielsen had planned for its big-data stream to be currency in this upfront, but reversed course earlier this year. The big-data stream remains unaccredited by the MRC.

Also Read: Nielsen: VAB Complaints About Measuring Amazon’s ‘Thursday Night Football’ Are ‘Misleading and Inaccurate’

The decision means that upfront ad buys based on panel data will be stewarded based on the same data.

“As Nielsen works to modernize media measurement by integrating census-level data sets, including first-party data, we remain committed to adhering to the MRC's measurement standards,” Nielsen said in a statement. “Our aim is to ensure the process with which we introduce new ways of measuring audiences is inclusive of client feedback and held to the highest standards. For now, Nielsen’s panel-only National TV service will remain the currency of record. First-party data will be included in Big Data in National measurement figures, which are available to all customers separately.”

Nielsen will continue to work to incorporate big data — obtained from set-top boxes and smart TVs as well as streaming network servers — into its ratings, the company told clients. It said the integration could be accomplished in as little as two months.

Sean Cunningham, CEO of the Video Advertising Bureau, which represents programmers and distributors, had opposed the inclusion of Amazon data in Nielsen’s TNF ratings.

Including Amazon data would boost its viewership totals, giving it an advantage over the other networks that broadcast NFL football and believe that Nielsen undercounts their audiences. 

“I think everyone wins,” Cunningham said of Nielsen’s decision. 

First-party data helps networks understand how to calibrate the audience shortfall in Nielsen’s data, Cunningham said. 

“The key will all of this is that it’s done in an extremely well-lit manner in which all the details are completely transparent to both buyers and sellers,” he said.

Nielsen dismissed the Video Advertising Bureau’s complaints about plans to use first-party data from Amazon to measure viewing of Thursday Night Football on Prime Video.

“We recognize this is a period of exceptional change in which all parties are at different stages of their own evolution,” Nielsen CEO of audience measurement business Karthik Rao said in a letter to VAB president and CEO Sean Cunningham. “However, the search for perfection risks further delaying the measurement innovations that will ultimately help drive the industry into the future. We believe that our principled, transparent and open approach to integrating first-party data requires all publishers to play by the same rules and will accelerate the industry’s move toward a streaming-first world.”

Cunningham and members of the VAB complained that using Amazon data would “tip the scale” in favor of TNF and leave other NFL broadcasts with fewer viewers counted. They asked Nielsen to hold off on using the Amazon data to measure Thursday Night Football for advertisers.

Amazon’s first-party data gave TNF a larger audience than Nielsen’s figures.

Rao said that Nielsen has been engaged with the industry — including VAB members — about integrating first-party data when it measures live streaming. He also dismissed specific complaints about Nielsen’s measurement of TNF as “misleading and inaccurate.”

The letter included details explanations of why the variances the VAB was finding in Nielsen data were either smaller than the VAB found or not caused by the use of Amazon data.

Nielsen has had a series of meetings about measuring sports live streams since 2021, Rao said. In March, Nielsen shared a document outlining requirements for integrating first-party streaming data.

“Clients other than Amazon did not immediately decide to take action, but we remain hopeful that they will in light of our progress and the level of engagement from other NFL programming/advertising competitors,” Rao said. 

“While Amazon is the first integration partner, we have been in active discussions with many of our clients for years about incorporating their first-party data for more accurate measurement of audiences across all live program types,“ he said. “We look forward to bringing more such integrations into our measurement in the near future.”

Amazon said it signed up more content for its Fire TV Channels.

New content providers include GameSpot, Honest Trailers, and TV Guide from Fandom; Looper, Slash Film, and Nicki Swift from Static Media; Variety, Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard and TV Line from Penske Media Corporation; and  Funny or Die and Outside. 

First TV Channels is a free ad-supported TV (FAST) video experience that Amazon said offers easy discovery with a single destination, giving customers access to thousands of new and topical ad-supported, live and on-demand short-form content across categories such as news, sports, entertainment news, travel, gaming. 

Amazon said ne videos are added to Fire TV Channels  throughout the day, 

The new providers join ABC News, CBS Sports HQ, MLB, Fox Sports, NHL, People, IGN, IMDb, Martha Stewart and GoTraveler amon content providers already signed up.

Customers can also find Fire TV Channels content integrated throughout the Fire TV experience by pressing the Home button on the Alexa Voice remote, scrolling down to find content rows labeled Fire TV Channels, and clicking a content tile for immediate playback. Or, they can click the Free icon in Fire TV’s navigation bar.

Fire TV Channels’ content rows and position may vary, as Fire TV personalizes each customer’s experience over time, Amazon said.

Amazon’s Freevee FAST service has rolled out 31 new FAST channels from NBCUniversal curated with content from past seasons of iconic series like Saturday Night Live, The Real Housewives, Top Chef and Keeping Up with the Kardashians, along with Spanish-language entertainment and news from Telemundo. Hit library television series, including Little House on the Prairie, Murder, She Wrote and Saved by the Bell, along with genre-based sitcoms, action, crime, westerns and monster movie content, will also launch as dedicated FAST channels.

The additions bring Freevee to more than 300 free curated channels, thematically programmed across an array of genres.

“Freevee has grown into a destination for a vast selection of FAST Channels, offering customers a wide selection of programming to stream from nearly any device including the Freevee app, Fire TV, and Prime Video,” said Ryan Pirozzi, head of Amazon Freevee. “We’re honored to be a launch partner for the full slate of FAST Channels coming from the NBCUniversal portfolio and can’t wait for Freevee customers to enjoy nearly 50 new channels, offering endless hours of lean back content to enjoy.”

The Federal Trade Commission has proposed making it easier for consumers to cancel online subscriptions they no longer want — including to streaming services — with civil penalties for companies that violate the new rules.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking released Friday is part of a broader review of the FTC's 1973 negative option rule but also comes in the wake of the agency's lawsuit accusing Amazon of “trapping” consumers into retaining their subscriptions by making it difficult to cancel them.

While the FTC concedes that recurring payment programs have benefits, but said they can be problematic when cancellation is “either difficult or impossible.”

Traditionally the FTC has used its rulemaking authority sparingly, instead suing or settling over alleged violations of existing laws against unfair or deceptive practices. But under chair Lina Khan, the FTC has made it clear it would be flexing its rulemaking muscle, and signaled this was a case of necessity.

“The current patchwork of laws and regulations available to the FTC do not provide consumers and industry with a consistent legal framework,” the regulator said in announcing the proposal.

That proposal would require that online video and other services make canceling subscriptions “at least as easy” as signing up for them — for example, both actions should take the same number of steps on the same website. In addition, for negative option programs for any product other than physical goods, such as ongoing video subscriptions, services would have to provide annual reminders prior to auto-renewal.

The new rule would also require services to ask consumers whether they wanted to hear about additional offers and to take “no” for an answer.

The vote was 3-1, with Khan and fellow Democratic commissioners Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya approving and Republican Christine Wilson dissenting, saying the rules were overly broad.

“If adopted, this rule would enable more efficient enforcement,” Khan and the Democratic majority said in a statement. “It would create a more powerful deterrent by introducing the risk of civil penalties. And it would allow the Commission to return money to wronged consumers.”

The Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include Amazon and Apple, warned against the unintended consequence of creating consumer confusion.

“We agree that unless consumers have clear means to cancel negative option arrangements, they might develop a distrust for retailers, particularly in online commerce," CCIA senior VP and chief of staff Stephanie Joyce said. “CCIA is concerned that the record in this proceeding does not support the FTC’s proposed action and that the expansive, new rules would create duplicative and inconsistent obligations that would invite confusion and uncertainty for both businesses and consumers.”

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) sounded even more alarmed, saying the new rules "could slow service, burden consumers with irrelevant information, and raise prices."

IAB executive VP for public policy Lartease Tiffith called on the FTC to conduct an economic analysis on the impact of the rules. 

“These proposed rules are far broader than what the FTC previewed in 2019,” Tiffith said. “As a result, businesses and consumers have had barely any input, and the agency is making poorly informed and potentially very costly decisions.”

The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday sued Amazon for allegedly tricking millions of customers into its Prime program, then ‘trapping’ them into the subscription service by making it prohibitively difficult to cancel. 

The heavily redacted suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in Seattle, is available here. The FTC also issued a press release on the matter Wednesday morning. 

In its complaint, the FTC said Amazon has used so-called dark patterns to lure customers into the Prime program, which offers members subsidized shipping on purchased goods, not to mention the Amazon Prime Video subscription-VOD smorgasbord. 

Dark patterns are user interface schemes designed to take advantage of inherent psychological biases and lead users toward making certain choices. 

"During Amazon’s online checkout process, consumers were faced with numerous opportunities to subscribe to Amazon Prime at $14.99/month," the FTC said in its press release. "In many cases, the option to purchase items on Amazon without subscribing to Prime was more difficult for consumers to locate."

Once enrolled in a recurring Prime subscription, Amazon made it exceedingly difficult to cancel the service. Not only was finding where to start the cancellation process challenging, but users are also faced with numerous redirects and confusing follow-up steps. 

“Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,” FTC chair Lina M. Khan said in a statement. “These manipulative tactics harm consumers and law-abiding businesses alike. The FTC will continue to vigorously protect Americans from ‘dark patterns’ and other unfair or deceptive practices in digital markets.”

For her part, Kahn achieved much of her profile after she penned a 2017 legal paper titled "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox."

Meanwhile, the FTC is cracking down more broadly on dark pattern usage by large internet companies. For example, Fortnite maker Epic Games agreed in December to pay $520 million to settle an FTC suit against it for allegedly tricking users into buying in-game trinkets.

Chris Ottinger didn’t exactly go all out on a media blitz in May after he was given the distribution reins for Amazon and MGM’s combined libraries. 

But Next TV was more than happy to host the longtime MGM distribution executive Tuesday afternoon at the Next TV Summit, part of Future’s two-day L.A. TV Week event, held at the Sofitel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills. The events continued Tuesday with the Advanced Advertising Summit and 40 Under 40 Awards.

Interviewed by The Ankler's Elaine Low, Ottinger gave us a unique perspective on how the occupied southern ranks of the conquered operate under the rule of their strange northern technology overlords.  

The values differ profoundly, but the good news is that basic content distribution instincts and skills are still useful to these bloodless, binary benefactors of the digital future. 

For now. 

Here are excerpts from the discussion between Ottinger and Low. 

Elaine Low: Chris, tell us how it's all been going for you.

Chris Ottinger: Sure. It's been a crazy year and a half. We closed the merger with Amazon, I think it was in March of last year. And, uh, in that time we’ve become ‘Amazonian,’ which is saying a lot more than it says in just those words. It’s a wildly different corporate culture than what we were exposed to in any of our prior roles at studios. I've worked at MGM, I've worked at Fox, I worked at CBS, I worked at Paramount. Nothing was remotely similar to working at Amazon. Really, really different company.

EL: Has anything surprised you? I wonder, being under the Amazon Studios umbrella now, culturally, how does it vary in a legacy story space like MGM? 

CO: Yeah, I think the biggest kind — and I’m sure everyone here will understand when I say the biggest changes with — you know, Amazon is a giant global, I think the biggest employer in the world. It is a tech-driven company, that it comes out of Seattle, but it comes out of Silicon Valley culture. And that culture is just a lot different. A lot of the things that we assumed coming out of the studio space, everything was driven by our catalog and our legacy. At Amazon, it's really driven by an obsession with our customers. So it’s really how do we, as quickly as possible, drive value for customers inside our service? It’s a really different viewpoint.

EL: Tell us a little bit about your work at Amazon MGM Studios distribution, now that it’s not just distribution of the more than 4,000 film titles and 17,000 TV episodes under the MGM catalog, but now also inclusive of Amazon Originals — which, as I understand it, are now able to be licensed to third-party platforms?

CO: Absolutely. So it has been, it’s a change, I think, in the business. One of the main reasons that Amazon bought MGM was to get distribution. We didn't understand this when we were being purchased, but it's become clear on the other side of the deal. Our work in the last six to nine months has really been driven about, how do we bring Amazon original programming out into the third-party distribution environment? And that’s been a giant challenge. They always had their fingers in it. If you go back and look at some of the decisions they made, they’ve been touching distribution, but the mandate going forward is very much to build a proper distribution business around all of the Amazon original content. And it’s a shocking amount of content. I had no idea the catalog was as big as it is.

EL: Tell me about any other kind of, are there any other interesting business experiments that you’re looking at, especially now that you’re looking at a screening environment? I know we talked a little bit before this panel about, uh, sort of the test and learn environment and I’m sure everyone would want to hear more about that.

CO: Sure. You know, one of the key things that Amazon is really into is this concept of test and learn. And we love two-way doors, and test and learn is part of that same concept. So we’ll do stuff where we know that if it’s a mistake, it’s a mistake and we can just move on. We’re not going to have committed the company in a way that there could be a lasting challenge. So most recently, we had two really, I think, interesting examples. One was Air. 

EL: I think I find the valuation question so interesting. Because especially when you see all these other streaming services out there that are starting to cull content, a lot of that based on the valuation and how they’re performing. So when you are having conversations with your peers, what is the vibe right now? 

CO: I think it’s the Wild West, I really do. I think everybody is interested. The level of interest from clients in our original product was incredibly high and that was super encouraging. But we’ve got to expect that these models have [to be] tested and we just don’t know, right? We’re looking for a breakout story. What's that story that performs really well? I think there’s a really positive view of the future of, you know, what kind of product can work and different launching methodologies. My real hope and my expectation is that things like Air, this hybrid model where we’re doing a theatrical release, tells the consumer that this is a real movie. It's not a direct-to-service title, and there's real long-term value with that. That's really the model that I'm most hopeful about. But it is a really big market. There’s so many buyers with so many different interests. Everything will find its home and will find its place. But what I’d love to see is real success with some direct-to-service originals.

EL: I think business model-wise we're in for an interesting couple of years.

CO: Yeah. We’re not gonna know the answers. Maybe this time next year, we’ll have a good idea of what it all means, but we’re not gonna know for a little while.

Inexpensive and popular Android TV streaming gadgets based on chip sets manufactured in China are reportedly arriving laced with malware out of the box after delivery from online retailers including Amazon. 

The devices, marketed under brand names like T95Max, RockChip X12 Plus and RockChip X88 Pro 10, are based on system-on-a-chip hardware from AllWinner and RockChip. 

Reports about cheap Android mobile devices being infected with malware aren't necessarily new, but the problem seems to have also quietly proliferated to the TVOS side of Google's business, with security researchers uncovering connected TV gadgets loaded with malware and ready to coordinate cyberattacks. 

As first detailed by TechCrunch, Ontario, Canada-based IT pro Daniel Milisic published last year on GitHub  his experience with a T95, which has a four-star rating on Amazon amid 744 reviews. 

Milisic said the device began connecting out of the box with a botnet network of thousands of other infected Android TV gadgets around the world. The device, he said, immediately sought out a command and control server, which downloaded additional malware to his gadget.

The malware enabled the T95 to begin conducting ad-click fraud, clicking on ads in the background. 

In his GitHub post, Milisic published the script he used to "defang" what he described as a "no good, awful, nasty little ARM-powered TV/hobby box." 

Milisic's findings were confirmed by Electronic Frontiers Foundation security researcher Bill Budington in this report. 

In an email to Next TV Friday, Adrianus Warmenhoven, a cybersecurity advisor at NordVPN, said that in addition to ad fraud, the malware could be used to mine user data or cryptocurrency, among other malfeasance. 

Next TV's query Friday to Google Android TV reps for a response wasn't immediately replied to. 

Amazon Studios has announced the formation of a new sales unit, MGM Studios Distribution, to handle the proliferation of its library of more than 4,000 film titles and 17,000 TV episodes into the global market.

Veteran MGM executive Chris Ottinger has been put in charge of the new division. Ottinger will report to Brad Beale, VP of worldwide licensing and distribution for Amazon and MGM Studios. For his part, Beale reports directly to Amazon and MGM Studios chief Jen Salke. 

Ottinger, a 15-year MGM distribution veteran who came aboard Amazon amid the e-commerce giant's $8.45 billion purchase of MGM last year, will also appear on a Fireside Chat at Next TV Summit L.A., which is set for June 20 at the Sofitel in Los Angeles. 

Amazon original movies and series under Ottinger’s purview include Coming 2 America, I Want You Back, The Tender Bar, The Tomorrow War, Goliath, Hunters and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, as well as MGM film franchises including James Bond, Rocky and Creed. Ottinger’s oversight also includes popular Amazon Prime Video series The Handmaid’s Tale, Vikings and Fargo, as well as the upcoming Hotel Cocaine from MGM Plus.

"The launch of Amazon MGM Studios Distribution reinforces our commitment to bringing the very best content to audiences everywhere worldwide," Salke said in a statement. "With the integration of MGM, we wanted to take advantage of the existing team to expand our business in ways that will greatly benefit our customers around the world."

Added Ottinger: “Pioneering the distribution of Amazon Originals for Amazon Studios is an exciting opportunity to bring fresh, never-before available quality content to audiences around the globe. In doing so, we will break through the current sales mold by creating custom packages that will fulfill our clients’ individual content needs.”

Amazon is looking to make its Thursday Night Football a bigger deal for viewers and advertisers.

The online retail giant said this season Thursday Night Football sponsors will be able to send different creative messages to different targeted audience groups within the same 30-second commercial position.

For example, an automaker could send a sports car spot to younger viewers, an SUV ad to sports and outdoors enthusiasts and a more general brand spot to the remaining viewers.

The audience-based creative capability will be available during pre- and post game shows, as well as year two of the Amazon Music Live concert series streamed after TNF. 

This season, the concert series will include performances by A$AP Rocky, Lil Wayne, Kane Brown, Anitta, and Megan Thee Stallion.  

Amazon is also providing advertisers with more clickable ad formats. Fire TV viewers can click a “send to phone” or “send to email” button with their remote that will give the viewer links to a brand’s Amazon store or product page.

Amazon expects the new capabilities to be particularly useful when Amazon streams the NFL’s first Black Friday game on the day after Thanksgiving.  That game will be available free to all viewers, not just Amazon Prime members.

“Where we think there’s a lot of opportunity is the ability for streaming TV to seamlessly bridge content to commerce,” Alan Moss, Amazon VP, Global Advertising Sales, told Broadcasting+Cable.

“In our upfront discussions so far we’re working backwards from brands’ desire to not only see their messages at the heart of premium content and offering great customer experiences, but also connecting the dots downstream with them to have meaningful business outcomes for these brands.”

Moss said being able to use multiple creative executions in a single spot on Thursday Night Football was a first for NFL games at scale. "It's going to be great for customers because they're going to see more relevant messages and it should lead to better advertiser outcomes as well."

Adding Data Sources For Advertisers

Last year, during Amazon’s first year as the exclusive national home of Thursday Night Football, Amazon worked with Nielsen to provide audience guarantees. This year, advertisers will also be able to get audience data from iSpot and VideoAmp.

Amazon will be transacting on Nielsen during 2023 but expects to give advertisers the option of transacting on iSpot.tv or VideoAmp in 2024, Moss said.

“Expanding iSpot’s ability to measure advertising on Amazon Ads goes beyond enabling a faster, more transparent, ad-centric approach for its customers,” said Sean Muller, CEO at iSpot. “Today’s announcement underlines our commitment to brands, which need to understand advertising in the context of the broader TV and streaming landscape and gain a clear view of audience viewership inside and outside the home to justify and optimize investments."

“This is a milestone that highlights the industry's growing demand for advanced measurement and cross-platform solutions which are crucial for advertisers. We're excited to work with Amazon Ads to provide advertisers accurate measurement with valuable insights to help them maximize their return on ad spend," added Michael Parkes, President, VideoAmp.

Amazon will be making sure media buyers are aware of the scale and reach it offers. Moss said that Amazon properties now reach an average monthly audience of 155 million people, or six out of every 10 adults in the U.S. 

Many of those viewers aren’t easy to reach with linear TV.  According to a Nielsen study, Amazon streaming TV campaigns reach an average of 10.9% incremental viewers to linear TV and 72% of Amazon streaming TV viewers are not watching linear TV.

Amazon will be making Amazon Marketing Cloud audiences available to advertisers. Marketers will be able to combine their own first party data with Amazon’s in a privacy-safe clean-room environment to improve the targeting of their ads.

Buyer should be able to activate the AMC audiences in the Amazon DSP with just a few clicks, Moss said.

Ad agency Buy Box Experts used the feature to help their client SimpliSafe refine its audience strategy. That helped grow the brand's return on ad spend by 109% and reduce the brand's cost-per-unit-sold by 65%, Amazon said.

Freevee, Amazon's ad-supported streaming service, is adding interactive pause ads that include a call to action for viewers.

Amazon Advertising said it can now help advertisers reach 155 million people monthly between its own properties and Amazon Publisher Direct. It said that Prime Video has become the most subscribed to streaming service in the U.S.

Viewers of Amazon’s Twitch watched 1.3 trillion minutes of content last year and 70% of those viewers are between the ages of 18 and 34.

Fire TV recently surpassed 200 million units. Fire TV unveiled Fire TV Channels, its new, ad-supported TV  experience 

Amazon Live will now produce shoppable livestream content with publishers and media brands, in addition to its popular influencer content. Customers can currently watch exclusive shoppable content from Tastemade, including  episodes of Struggle Meals, and starting in late-May, viewers will be able to shop live while watching exclusive content from Revolt, the multi-platform media company from Sean “Diddy” Combs.  

Fox Television Stations and Amazon are teaming up to distribute the stations’ local news content across the tech giant’s devices. Effective immediately, Fox Television Stations (FTS) will provide 17 local, free, ad-supported television (FAST) channels that are on 24/7, one from each market covered by the group, through the Amazon News app on Fire TV and Alexa on Echo Show devices. 

This collaboration began in March 2022 with the initial distribution of LiveNOW from Fox and Fox Soul FAST channels. In December 2022, local news content from five Fox-owned stations debuted across Amazon products: WTXF Philadelphia, KTVU San Francisco, KSAZ Phoenix, WJBK Detroit and KMSP Minneapolis. The remaining twelve in the group, WNYW New York, KTTV Los Angeles, WFLD Chicago, KDFW Dallas, WAGA Atlanta, KRIV Houston, WTTG Washington, KCPQ Seattle, WTVT Tampa Bay, WOFL Orlando, KTBC Austin and WITI Milwaukee, are now available across Amazon products, such as Fire TV and Echo Show devices. In addition to live content, FTS is also distributing local news video-on-demand clips.

“This important collaboration with Amazon further solidifies our commitment to bring FTS’s powerhouse local news content to as many people as possible,” said Jeff Zellmer, senior VP, digital operations, Fox Television Stations. “We know that choice and accessibility matter to our viewers and this launch is another key step in our overall strategy and goal of giving our viewers the live and on-demand content from the stations they love.”

At league meetings next week, the NFL will discuss ways to improve the matchup quality for Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football schedule, after last season’s Thursday-night slate became noticeably bereft of competitive games.

According to the Sports Business Journal, the NFL will discuss what is called “flex scheduling,” whereby the league can move games previously scheduled for Sundays to Thursdays for weeks 14 to 17 provided they give both teams 15 days notice. Being able to handpick teams with better records would certainly improve TNF’s matchups.

The league would also be able to compel teams to play on Thursday night after playing the previous Sunday twice in a season instead of just once. This would allow the league to increase appearances by select good teams. 

Last season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers played the Baltimore Ravens on Amazon in week 8, but no Amazon game after that similarly featured two playoff teams. And of those final eight TNF matchups, only two were competitive enough to be decided by one score. 

The matchup issue was conspicuous enough so that TNF play-by-play announcer Al Michaels remarked at one point last season, “I can’t sell a used car.” 

Amazon is paying $1 billion a season for the TNF TV rights. Amazon was able to improve the NFL’s performance in younger demos by moving the TNF franchise to streaming. However, total viewership was off by 41% vs. the 2021 season, when the franchise was shared by primarily linear platforms. ■

Starz said it reached a deal with Amazon to offer consumers a bundle that combines the Starz streaming service with Amazon’s MGM Plus.

The bundle is being priced at $11.99, which the companies say represents a 20% discount versus the price of the two services bought separately. The combo package is expected to be available in a few weeks.

The move comes at a time when industry observers see a consolidation in the streaming business that would increase profitability for media companies finding tough sledding as their pivot to streaming and as consumers react to the sticker shock of how much it costs to subscribe to multiple services.

“We are excited to join forces with Amazon to offer Starz together with MGM PLUS to their millions of customers on Prime Video,” Alison Hoffman, president of domestic networks for Starz, said. “Starz is a complementary service to general entertainment offerings, so we’re thrilled to see that bundling is now here and believe there will be many more bundling opportunities to come.”

MGM Plus used to be known as Epix. It became part of Amazon when Amazon acquired MGM. Programming available on the service includes Godfather of Harlem, FROM, Billy the Kid, A Spy Among Friends, War of the Worlds, Rogue Heroes and Belgravia. 

Starz is a Lionsgate company. Its programming includes Outlander, the Power series, P-Valley, Party Down and Blindspotting. ■

Amazon said its Alexa Fund is leading a $20 million investment in Superplastic, a digital studio that creates synthetic celebrities.

Amazon Studio is developing an animated comedy series starring two of Superplastic’s characters, Janky and Guggimon. The series will stream exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.

Amazon has also signed a first-look deal with Superplastic to create additional series and films starring other Superplastic characters. 

“As we expand the Alexa Fund to address a wider range of consumer technologies that include ambient computing, smart devices, and the future of entertainment, we’re very excited to add Superplastic to our portfolio,” Paul Bernard, director of the Alexa Fund, said. “Superplastic’s virtual celebrities delight audiences and meet their customers where they are, and we see them as demonstrative of a new class of IP that is going to be increasingly relevant with younger generations. We are excited to be an investor and to continue to help Superplastic and Amazon’s Media and Entertainment teams identify more ways to delight customers.”

The Janky & Guggimon Show follows the adventures of two lazy and spectacularly incompetent friends who are hell-bent on getting rich and famous but leave a trail of chaos and destruction in their wake, the companies said. Janky is a loveable idiot who spends his spare time scamming celebrities, while Guggimon is a fashion icon and master manipulator who’s too narcissistic to care.

In addition to Amazon’s Alexa Fund, others investing in the new Series A round of funding for Superplastic include Craft Ventures, Google Ventures, Galaxy Digital, Kering, Sony Japan, Scribble Ventures, Kakao, Animoca Brands, Day One Ventures and Betaworks. This latest round brings Superplastic's total funding to $58 million, The funds will be used to support the expansion of the Superplastic character universe. 

“Superplastic’s universe of synthetic celebrities have earned a cult following in every medium they’ve touched,” Superplastic founder and CEO Paul Budnitz said. “The new collaboration partnership with Amazon Studios reaches a massive audience and provides a new playground for us to wreak havoc worldwide. We're grateful for the investment the Amazon Alexa Fund gave us to help us continue to grow the Superplastic Universe.” ■

The FCC has paved the way for Amazon’s satellite-delivered broadband company, Project Kuiper, and its constellation of low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellites.

On the same day the House Communications Subcommittee held a hearing on satellite communications tech, the Federal Communications Commission’s International Bureau approved the orbital debris mitigation plan of Kuiper Systems as well as its license modification, which will allow the company to begin deploying birds and ultimately deliver high-speed broadband connectivity.

The FCC’s approval comes with conditions to mitigate collision risk, reliable post-orbit disposal and more.

The FCC back in July 2020 conditionally granted Kuiper's request to operate its broadband satellite system, subject to the approval of its orbital debris mitigation plans. Kuiper filed that plan as a license modification but the FCC still had some issues, now resolved.

Amazon said in December that its first two satellites — Kuipersat-1 and Kuipersat-2 — will be launched on United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket in early 2023.

The company says it has lined up 92 launches with ULA, Arianespace, and Blue Origin to deploy 3,236 satellites, the largest launch-services purchase in history, Amazon said. ■

SportsGrid said it reached a distribution deal with Amazon to launch its 24-hour fast channel dedicated to sports betting odds and information on Freevee.

“It’s a very big deal,” Louis Maione, SportsGrid founder and president, told Broadcasting+Cable. “We think it’s a beautiful partnership. I think it’s complementary on all levels.”

Maione said SportsGrid could also get carriage on Amazon Prime Video and other Amazon platforms in the U.S. and internationally.

As part of the agreement, SportsGrid will also help develop content for Amazon. “We look forward to the Amazon partnership to innovate and develop new tools to engage and redefine the sports viewers betting experience,“ Maione said.

SportsGrid has been built by focusing first on distribution, Maione said. Available on Vidaa, Samsung TV Plus, Roku, LG, Vizio WatchFree Plus, TCL, Stirr, FuboTV, Xumo, YouTube and Plex platforms, SportsGrid claims 60 million unique viewers. With Amazon, it should shoot up to 110 million, Maione said. “This FAST phenomenon is not going to end,” he said.

(SportsGrid launched digital broadcast channels in several markets with Nexstar in 2021, but it didn’t work out.)

That has the business running at a profit and could generate EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes depreciation and amortization) of $15 million to $20 million this year, Maione said.

Following the Amazon deal, Maione said, SportsGrid plans to hire senior programming, ad-sales and marketing executives and “add sparkle” to its on-air content.

It will be raising its profile with a marketing campaign using the slogan, “Be Smarter on SportsGrid.” If the campaign clicks, it could go all the way to the Super Bowl. “If opportunity knocks and we get our EBITDA up to $15 to 20 million, next year we’ll spend $5 to $7 million on a commercial,” Maione said.

Maione, who started his career on Wall Street, where he discovered the value of information that could help colleagues win their high-stakes fantasy leagues, says he’s turned down offers to buy SportsGrid. “We’re not for sale, but eventually someone will buy it,” he said.

With its distribution, SportsGrid operates with a “media as a service model.” That means SportsGrid reaches out to FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM and other sports books and endemics and offers to work with them to produce shows. Those companies pay to have those shows as part of SportsGrid’s schedule and reach its audience.

SportsGrid uses its customers' logos, talent and licenses to make the programming attractive. If a company has a deal with the NFL, for example, its show on SportsGrid could include game highlights.

“Why is that good for the platforms and the distributors?“ Maione asked. “Because the content gets better and better every year and you get better and better-shared talent.”

On top of that, SportsGrid and its distribution partners can sell commercials under either inventory-share deals, where SportsGrid sells some of the inventory, or revenue shares, in which the platform sells the ads and splits the revenue with SportsGrid.

Maione said SportsGrid will be hiring an industry veteran he declined to identify as global head of programming, talent and creative in March to polish the network’s programming, including launching an anchor show that will feature a combination of talent and information.

The new programming head will help get SportsGrid the right talent, put them in the right position and have them appear at the right time of day, Maione said, giving the brand a higher profile.

“Think of us as a CNBC for sports betting and sports knowledge,” Maione said. “We like to say we up your game, we up your IQ, we up your edge, we up your odds. It’s smarter to be on SportsGrid.”

SportsGrid also has a new website and app in the works.

Maione says SportsGrid is not a tout service, pushing its picks. Nor does it profit by referring viewers to betting operators through affiliate deals.

“We help them be smarter at the water cooler,” he said. “And if they choose to bet, go right ahead. We don't tell people to bet and pay for our picks. We're not a tout. We just give good insights and opinion.”

That approach could make the company attractive to media companies, betting operators, affiliate operators, data companies or tech companies.

“In every category, we’ve had somebody interested. Currently, we have four out of five,” he said. “So yes, there’s always M&A activity, but we’re not for sale.”

At least not yet. ■

After rebooting its long-running Amazon Prime Video crime drama Bosch as Bosch: Legacy on AVOD platform Freevee last year, Amazon announced that it's expanding the Bosch franchise with two spin-off series. 

One will feature actor Jamie Hector, reprising his role as Haitian-born Detective Jerry Edgar, working an undercover assignment for the FBI in the "Little Haiti" area of Miami. "J. Edgar," as he was known, was the loyal LAPD partner to titular character Det. Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver) on seven seasons of the original Bosch that ran on Prime Video from 2014 - 2021. 

Meanwhile, another spinoff will be built around a character that will be introduced in  Freevee's upcoming second season of Bosch: Legacy -- LAPD Det. Renee Ballard, a female crimefighter mentored by Bosch, who himself has left the department and now fights crime as a private investigator. 

The log lines and cast/producer summaries for the two new shows are pasted below. 

It's unclear what Amazon streaming platform each will ultimately drop on. 

The whole "Bosch Universe" was created by novelist Michael Connelly.

Untitled J. Edgar show 

Logline: A police drama following Harry Bosch’s former partner, Detective Jerry Edgar, who is tapped for an undercover FBI mission in Little Haiti, Miami. In this glamorous city, he is forced to balance his new life with the gritty underbelly of the city, while being chased by his mysterious past. 

EPs: Michael Connelly, Larry Andries. The producing team on behalf of Fabel Entertainment will include executive producers Henrik Bastin and Melissa Aouate, and co-executive producer Jasmine Russ.

Untitled Renee Ballard show

Logline: Detective Renee Ballard is tasked with running the LAPD’s new cold case division. Beyond simply investigating unsolved crimes, Renee is dedicated to bringing credibility to the department and justice to the community. Having learned from retired ally and mentor Harry Bosch, Renee does things her way – solving cases in unconventional ways while navigating the politics of being a woman on the rise in the LAPD. 

EPs: Michael Connelly, Michael Alaimo, Kendall Sherwood. The producing team on behalf of Fabel Entertainment will include executive producers Henrik Bastin and Melissa Aouate, and co-executive producer Jasmine Russ.

PASADENA, CALIF. — Epix heads into its January 15 rebranding launch to MGM Plus with a lineup of new and returning series — including freshman shows Rogue Heroes and Billy the Kid — that it hopes will attract audiences to the premium channel.

“The opportunity to build a platform on the MGM name is a gift,” MGM Plus president Michael Wright said Tuesday during the network’s Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour session. “MGM Plus embraces and extends that brand.”

The network, which last year was acquired by Amazon when it bought MGM for $8.45 billion, will officially relaunch with the third-season premiere of the Forest Whitaker starrer Godfather of Harlem, executives said. MGM Plus also announced an April 23 premiere date for the second season of its sci-fi horror series FROM.

The network also announced second-season renewals for drama Rogue Heroes and adventure series Billy The Kid.

New drama series include A Spy Among Friends, starring Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce, which will debut March 12; as well as true-crime docuseries Murf the Surf, which debuts February 5, the network said. 

MGM Plus’s development slate includes scripted series based on the 1997 movie Hoodlum, as well as the apocalyptic-themed series Ark. Below is MGM Plus’ announced development slate with network descriptions:

The Emperor of Ocean Park (scripted) — From John Wells Productions and Warner Bros. Television, The Emperor of Ocean Park is a thrilling, suspenseful take on Stephen L. Carter’s best-selling novel. Set in the worlds of D.C. politics, Ivy League academia, and the beaches of Martha’s Vineyard, the series centers on Talcott Garland’s quiet life as an Ivy League law professor whose world is shattered when his father, Judge Oliver Garland, dies of an apparent heart attack. The nature of the judge’s death is questioned by Tal’s sister, Mariah, a former journalist and constant conspiracy theorist, who believes that the judge, a former failed Black nominee to the Supreme Court, met with foul play. Sherman Payne is the writer, with Damian Marcano attached to direct.

Hoodlum (scripted) — Based on the 1997 MGM film written by Chris Brancato, this drama series set in the 1930s follows the true story of Harlem numbers queen Stephanie St. Clair’s rise to prominence and mentorship of Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson. MGM Plus Studios is developing, and Brancato and Monica Macer are co-creating and executive producing.

Earth Abides (scripted) — When a plague of unprecedented virulence sweeps the globe, the human race is all but wiped out. In the aftermath, as the great machine of civilization slowly and inexorably breaks down, only a few shattered survivors remain to struggle against the slide into barbarism … or extinction. Based on the novel by George R. Stewart, which is published by Harper Voyager, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, MGM Plus Studios is developing with Michael Phillips, Juliana Maio, and Kearie Peak attached as executive producers.

American Classic (scripted) — American Classic is a half-hour comedy about a man desperately trying to save himself, his family and his hometown in the only way he knows how — by putting on a show. Broadway star and notorious narcissist Richard Bean (Kevin Kline) suffers a spectacular public meltdown and decides to return home to the family-run theater where he first became aware of his own brilliance. When he arrives, he’s shocked to find that his brother (Jon Tenney), and his brother’s wife (who also happens to be his former lover), have turned his temple of art into a dinner theater — with the emphasis on dinner. To make matters worse, his hometown of Millersberg is teetering on the edge of economic disaster. Inspired, Richard vows to put on a show so great that it will save the theatre, the town and, most importantly, his career. But with the family and town in chaos, the constant threat of financial ruin, and Richard’s enormous ego, will they even make it to opening night? Michael Hoffman, Bob Martin, Leslie Urdang, Kline, Anthony Bregman and Miriam Mintz are attached as executive producers. American Classic is being developed as a co-production between MGM Plus Studios and Anonymous Content’s AC Studios.

Ark (scripted) — It’s 2030, the oceans have risen rapidly, and soon, the entire planet will be submerged. But the discovery of another life-sustaining planet light years away gives hope to those who remain alive. Only a few will be able to make the generations-long journey, and those who don’t make the cut face a watery death. Based on the books by Stephen Baxter, the series is in development as a co-production between MGM Plus Studios and Anonymous Content’s AC Studios.

Hollywood Black — Based on the book by historian Donald Bogle, this four-part docuseries tells the epic story of the actors, writers, directors and producers who fought for their place on the page, behind the camera, on the screen, and in the credits. It is a definitive chronicle of a century of the Black experience in Hollywood and a powerful reexamination of a quintessentially American story — in brilliant color. Culture Machine’s Justin Simien (Dear White People, Bad Hair) and Kyle Laursen, Significant Productions’s Forest Whitaker and Nina Yang Bongiovi (Godfather of Harlem), and RadicalMedia’s Dave Sirulnick, Stacey Reiss and Jon Kamen (Summer of Soul) will all serve as executive producers. Simien and Jeffrey Schwartz (Tab Hunter Confidential, I Am Divine) are set to direct. 

Hot Stuff (docuseries) — Mention the word “disco” to most people and it brings back memories of a plastic music fad, the movie Saturday Night Fever, and the infamous NYC club Studio 54. Yet there is so much more to the story. Hot Stuff is a four-part docuseries that dives into what was nothing less than a liberation movement. From its birth in underground gay clubs, where DJs broke new music on their twin turntables, disco, with its infectious 4/4 beat and powerful basslines, exploded on the scene. From rampant hedonism to rule-breaking fashion, to a bevy of divas with luscious vocals, disco marked a transformation in the look and sound of a society ready for change. Was disco the forgettable fast food of pop music, or was it a cultural revolution that still resonates today? Oscar-nominated documentary studio XTR (They Call Me Magic) will be producing the series, while David Friendly and Lesley Chilcott are attached as executive producers.

The Devil Within (docuseries) — This four-part, true-crime docuseries is based on the hit Cavalry Audio podcast The Devil Within, which follows the mysterious murder of Betty Ann Sullivan during the height of the Satanic Panic. Filled with twists, turns and iconic legends, the series fuses true crime with horror. Simply put, what started as a dark, small-town murder investigation quickly spiraled into a paranormal mystery. Executive produced by Eli Roth with executive producers Dirk Hoogstra and Nicole Sorrenti for Half Yard Productions, a North Road Co.

Wonderland Murders & the Secret History of Hollywood (docuseries) — When best-selling crime novelist Michael Connelly discovered that Scott Thorson, best known as Liberace’s lover and author of the tell-all Behind the Candelabra, held the keys to the infamous Wonderland Murders, he only had one problem: Thorson’s stories sounded too unbelievable to be true. As the stories got weirder and wilder, and Thorson’s own “nine lives” stretched beyond the Wonderland Murders themselves, Connelly struggled with how far to follow this unreliable narrator. Connelly (Lincoln Lawyer, Bosch, Bosch: Legacy) executive produces the four-episode documentary series alongside Jen Casey and Nick Gilhool for Miziker Content; Eli Holzman and Aaron Saidman for The Intellectual Property Corp. (IPC), a part of Sony Pictures Television; and Rick Jackson. Alison Ellwood (The Go-Go’s, How to Change Your Mind, Laurel Canyon) will direct as well as executive produce. ■

Hopefully readers had a Happy New Year, but there‘s no holiday for many in the industry who have to deal with issues ranging from the cost of streaming to cord-cutting to a weak economy.

Here’s a list of executives at key companies facing big challenges and questions. We’ll be following them to see what solutions they come up with.

Also: 2023 Predictions: Streaming Grows with Advertising and Measurement Follows

Jeff Shell, Comcast

Jeff Shell, as CEO of Comcast’s NBCUniversal business, is in charge of the cable giant’s media assets at a time when the media business is under pressure and perhaps a questionable investment. Other media companies have doubled down on streaming and, while already losing billions of dollars, NBCU’s Peacock remains tiny. Comcast might opt to buy Disney’s majority stake in Hulu rather than sell its own minority stake to Disney. Or Comcast could spin off NBCU, or maybe merge it with Warner Bros. Discovery or Paramount to gain scale. Either way Shell will have an important seat at Comcast scion Brian Roberts’s table.

Chris Licht, CNN

Everyone at Warner Bros. Discovery is on a hot seat fueled by $50 billion in debt. Big things need to be done, including the creation of a new direct-to-consumer streaming service that combines HBO Max and Discovery Plus. But the most pressure is on Chris Licht, who was made head of CNN last year. Licht has already shook up the network’s morning show and primetime schedule and stripped familiar programming from HLN. Hundreds of staffers have lost their jobs and there are no promises that more won’t end up on the chopping block until ratings and revenues pick up.

John Halley, Paramount

John Halley, the head of Paramount ad sales, replaced Jo Ann Ross, the queen of the upfronts. He canceled the company’s iconic Carnegie Hall upfront event in a softening ad market. Paramount owns the most traditional of the traditional broadcasting networks in CBS, while its cable networks — including MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon — are challenged by cord-cutting (bright spot: Paramount Network with Yellowstone). No doubt the ad business is changing from touch to tech and from broadcast to streaming, but do Halley and Paramount risk trading broadcast bucks for digital dimes?

David Kenny, Nielsen

David Kenny accomplished the sale of Nielsen to a consortium of private equity companies. How interested is he in trying to maintain Nielsen’s hegemony over the media research business? Can he sell Nielsen One to an industry that is hopeful that converged measurement will become available, but skeptical about Nielsen’s ability to deliver and worried about how much it will cost? Or will he join the half dozen other top Nielsen execs taking the packages made available by the buyout?

Charlie Collier, Roku

The tech giants have turned their attention to TV with Google and Amazon using the mighty NFL as a key part of their programming playbooks. What are streaming-device maker Roku and Charlie Collier, who joined Roku from Fox Entertainment last year, going to do for content? Collier is also in charge of advertising, but Roku will have to attract eyeballs to sell ads. Can he make a big swing, like AMC Networks did when he was there, with a run of iconic shows: Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead?

Charlie Ergen, Dish Network

Charlie Ergen, chairman of Dish Network, may have run out of broadcasters to black out. Is it finally time to focus on mobile and get out of the TV business by merging Dish Network with DirecTV? In November, he said the window is open. Is he ready to jump through?

Mike Hopkins, Amazon

Amazon made big inroads into the TV business in 2022. A first exclusive season of Thursday Night Football, the megamillion-dollar series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, the rebrand of the Freevee AVOD service. There’s still much to be done. Amazon’s $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM needs to be integrated, a task that might be complicated by the departure of hit-maker and Trump creator Mark Burnett.

David Preschlack, Diamond Sports Group

Veteran TV sports exec David Preschlack in December was named CEO at Diamond Sports Group, the increasingly separate division of Sinclair Broadcast Group that runs the Bally Sports regional sports networks. That gives him the unenviable task of managing shrinking distribution revenue and rising rights costs while improving relationships with the major sports leagues whose streaming rights he needs to reach cord-cutting sports fans. The odds are against business as usual with the smart money betting on a race between bankruptcy and a sale, possibly to those same sports leagues.

Adam Silver, NBA

Adam Silver is commissioner of the National Basketball Association, the next major league whose television rights will be available. With its young, hip fan base, NBA rights will command an increase from the $2 billion currently paid by The Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros. Discovery. WBD CEO David Zaslav recently declared that his company doesn’t need the NBA. Maybe not. But its Turner networks won’t be the same without Inside the NBA. The rights could go to the NBA (with John Tesh’s Roundball Rock theme making a comeback) or Amazon, Apple or Google could line up for a three point shot.

Soo Kim, Standard General

Soo Kim, founder and CEO of Standard General, reached a deal to buy Tegna for $8.6 billion almost a year ago. But the approval process has been unusually protracted. Facing opposition from unions, rival station groups and cable operators, Standard General has stressed the deal would be in the public interest, bringing diversity to the station group’s management. Kim has also made extraordinary promises not to lay off newsroom staff or to leverage Tegna’s size to get better retransmission deals for Standard General but no end is in sight. The delays have been costly. Interest rates are up and the media business has entered a recession, lowering the value of broadcast assets. How long can Kim fight to get this deal approved? Or will he give up and let someone else grab Tegna?

James Dolan, AMC Networks

James Dolan, chairman of AMC Networks, let CEO Christina Spade go in November and announced there would be “large-scale layoffs” at the company. Those layoffs were swiftly executed, with about 20% of the company’s staff being let go. Dolan has become executive chairman at AMC, but it remains to be seen what will happen to the company and whether there’s a place in the industry for a small-scale distributor of high-quality content.

Jeremi Gorman, Netflix

Jeremi Gorman joined Netflix as president of worldwide advertising soon after the streaming giant announced that after being proudly commercial free, it would be selling spots. After making an ad-tech deal with Microsoft, Netflix got its ad tier launched with remarkable speed. But early returns were just that: Netflix had too few ad-tier viewers and had to give money back to sponsors. Gorman will aim to scale up before the upfronts. Pro tip: Carnegie Hall is available. ■

Amid all the conversation about what’s happening at The Walt Disney Co. with its old-new CEO, and the continued bloodletting at Warner Bros. Discovery, and now AMC, it’s been easy to overlook other incumbents in the still-evolving video streaming business. 

Perhaps nowhere is this more true than with Amazon, where, like its namesake river, vast currents appear to be shifting the many, many entertainment holdings of the online commerce and cloud giant. Little bits of flotsam pop up here and there to suggest big change beneath a seemingly placid surface, with potential implications for the entire industry. 

First, it’s worth noting what’s already been a pretty impressive (and wildly expensive) 2022. In March, the company closed its $8.45 billion purchase of storied movie and TV studio MGM, at a multiple that raised eyebrows all over Hollywood. That brought into Amazon’s hands thousands of movies, tens of thousands of hours of TV, production teams, a premium cable network, and endless opportunities for remakes, reboots and sequels. 

Also read: Monolithic Declaration of the Week: Parks Ranks Amazon Prime Video No. 1 U.S. SVOD Over Netflix

In September, Amazon Prime Video launched the most-expensive series ever, The Rings of Power. It didn’t quite match the ratings of its obvious competition, HBO’s House of Dragons, but appears well situated for a long run.

A couple of weeks after the Lord of the Rings prequel debuted, Prime Video kicked off its first self-produced season of Thursday Night Football ‘casts, for which it is paying the NFL $1 billion a year. Despite some really crummy matchups that tested a hall of fame broadcaster, Al Michaels, the games are attracting promising ratings and subscriber signups.

And even with the eye-popping spending behind those 2022 projects, CEO Andy Jassy used last week’s New York Times Dealbook Summit to declare that Amazon’s entertainment venture is actually about more than just getting folks to buy things online. 

“I do think over time we have opportunities to make our Prime Video business a standalone business with very attractive economics,” Jassy said. An Amazon Prime Video that actually can pay its own way must be scary for all the competitors financing their streaming transition from their declining broadcast and cable operations.

Jassy’s comments reminded everyone that Amazon has been shifting a lot, and is only getting bigger when it comes to entertainment. Among the changes in recent weeks:

* Key departures are reshaping the company’s executive ranks. Senior VP of Global Media and Entertainment Jeff Blackburn is retiring, for the second time, his oversee-everything entertainment job now divided between Mike Hopkins, who heads Prime Video, Amazon Studios and MGM, and Steve Boom, who heads all the audio, music, games and Twitch businesses. Jennifer Salke adds MGM Studios to her Amazon Studios responsibilities. 

* Also worth noting is the exit of Mark Burnett, perhaps unscripted TV’s most successful creator ever, with durable franchises such as Survivor, The Voice, Shark Tank and The Apprentice, as well as MGM’s biggest scripted hit, The Handmaid’s Tale. For all Burnett’s gifts, he produced few big new shows at MGM (The Bible, but not much else), and clashed repeatedly with other executives. In Burnett’s wake, MGM’s TV side is also reorganizing, with COO Chris Brearton adding an unwieldy, 11-word-long title that puts him in charge of corporate strategy, the renamed Epix (now MGM+), Prime Video Studios, and the MGM Alternative division. As Brearton put it in a staff memo: “I realize we’ve all been through a tremendous amount of change over the last few months.” Perhaps now the group can again start asserting itself.

* Moving into live sports with the NFL deal was certainly big for Amazon Prime. Jassy, a sports fan who is minority owner of the NHL’s Seattle Kraken, called live sports “a unique asset” that Amazon will continue to invest in. For broadcast and cable networks trying to pencil out their huge investments in pricey sports rights, that can’t be a comforting thought.

* In another little-noticed announcement, Amazon said it plans to release 12 to 15 movies a year. That would make Amazon one of the biggest providers to a still-limping theatrical sector at a time when traditional studios are wondering what they can afford to release. Amazon’s involvement in the business could distort the economics of the entire business. 

At the Dealbook conference, Jassy articulated a future where Amazon makes plenty of its own content, but also becomes the fulcrum of distribution for lots of other services through its Channels program.

Jassy rightly suggested that, for all the flexibility and breadth of content and choice that streaming has brought, many audiences miss one really good thing about cable TV: it was a one-stop shop for all your viewing interests. 

“Customers would like to go to a place and find everything they want,” Jassy said. “They don’t want to go to five or six different places.”

His comments caught the attention of attendees at this week’s OTT.X strategy summit, where I moderated two panels of analysts. That consumer concern about having skip around is a real issue, they said. And for the niche channels that make up a significant part of OTT.X’s membership, having a place where customers can easily find and subscribe to their networks is invaluable. 

But one need only look at Amazon’s history to understand there are risks if Amazon ultimately gains that kind of role for big parts of the industry. 

One day, your company may see Amazon slash the rates it pays for your content, as has happened repeatedly with indie providers running their libraries on Amazon. And just maybe, as has happened with all kinds of manufacturers selling their goods on Amazon, it’s not hard to imagine one day your media company might wake up to find Amazon is making its own versions of the same thing, for a lot less.  

Whatever plays out for Amazon over the next couple of years, I suspect Jassy is right about one thing: “I think this time, this next year or two in the economy, is going to test the resolve of a lot of companies.” 

We know Amazon will still be there in 2024 and beyond. The question is, who else will be around, and how will they reach the audiences they need to survive and thrive? ▪️

Pioneering reality TV producer Mark Burnett has become the latest MGM executive to depart following Amazon's $8.45 billion purchase of the studio earlier this year. 

Burnett is known for creating influential non-scripted TV hits including Survivor, The Apprentice and Shark Tank, among many others. 

“After months of collaborative transition efforts, we have thoughtfully reorganized our teams so that they all have the opportunity to prosper under the leadership of Mike Hopkins, Jennifer Salke and Christopher Brearton,” Burnett wrote in a memo to Amazon staff Monday. “In these days of media layoffs I am proud to say that everyone in the TV division has been offered a way to continue to contribute. No one was left behind.”

Also read: Amazon Just Paid a 40% Premium to Buy MGM — What’s It Really Getting?

Burnett, who said he expects to return to a hands-on creative producing role, follows film executive Mike De Luca, who departed MGM earlier. 

Burnett joined MGM in 2014, when the studio purchased his One Three Media and LightWorkers Media companies. He became president of MGM Television and Digital Group in December 2015 and moved up to chairman of the studio’s Worldwide Television Group three years later. 

He had a significant equity stake in MGM at the time of Amazon’s purchase. ▪️

Amazon Ads said it would provide advertisers with ways to measure the incremental reach it generates via streaming television.

At its unBoxed conference in New York Wednesday, the giant online retailer said Amazon Streaming TV reaches an unduplicated potential monthly U.S. audience of more than 135 million, including Freevee and Twitch.

Its new household reach report is generated post-campaign and shows advertisers how many people saw video ads beyond those who viewed them on linear TV.

Amazon said it assembles the report by combining first- and third-party signals, augmented by machine learning-based projections.

The big-tech firm recently announced it was working with Nielsen to measure Thursday Night Football audiences on Amazon Prime Video for advertisers.

Amazon also said that more than 25 of its streaming series are participating in its Virtual Product Placement program. 

The shows include Sprung; Cosmic Love; Reacher; Love Accidentally; Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan; Bosch: Legacy; Making the Cut and Leverage: Redemption. 

Virtual product placement helps brands show up within streaming TV content and reach the right audiences while allowing Amazon content creators to focus on telling stories, the company said.

Another opportunity for advertisers is to use the Amazon Freevee welcome screen as a full-screen showcase for the brands. In the beta version of the product, brands get seven seconds of exposure when consumers launch the Freevee app on Fire TV.

Fire TV customers will also have access to the IMDb What to Watch app, which provides U.S. users with a series of interactive mini-games and quizzes designed to help fan decide what to stream. The feature comes with in-app sponsorship opportunities. 

“Our video ad solutions work together and make it simpler for brands to reach relevant audiences at scale, so they can deliver their creative work alongside popular content, engage viewers with delightful experiences and measure and optimize their impact,” Amazon Ads VP of U.S. Sales Tanner Elton said. “We want to bring the power of video advertising to more brands, no matter their size or level of resources.” 

Amazon pointed to research from Wyzowl in which 73% of consumers said they prefer video ads to learn about products and services, and 88% said video ads have convinced them to buy. 

The U.S. is home to more than 225 million streaming-TV viewers with spending on digital video advertising expected to reach $76 billion in 2022, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

To help marketers choose video, Amazon has a creative services offering that helps advertisers discover, compare and directly book with trusted service providers for the creation of impactful Sponsored Brands, Streaming TV, and Sponsored Display videos, as well as other creative assets. Brands can search and filter services based on their requirements, browse reviews and samples and directly connect with providers for end-to-end creative delivery, all within the Amazon ads console, the company said. 

Creative services simplify the creative production process for advertisers and enables more multichannel or upper-funnel marketing. Amazon said the service is free to use and there are no minimum commitments required to book. All services ensure compliance with Amazon Ads policy. ▪️

Epix, the commercial-free subscription service acquired by Amazon when it bought MGM for $8.45 billion, is getting a new name, but not a very original one.

Starting January 15, 2023, the service will be called MGM Plus, falling into line with Disney Plus, Discovery Plus, AMC Plus, Apple TV Plus and a fairly long list of others.

In its announcement, Epix calls itself a streaming service, but at last count it reportedly had about 85 million subscribers, mainly through cable, satellite and telco distribution, getting a big boost from Comcast during the cable operator’s distribution battle with Starz.

The release, which doesn’t mention Amazon, said MGM Plus will continue to be available in the U.S. on Prime Video, cable, telco, satellite and digital distribution services.

Epix belatedly launched a standalone OTT service, Epix Now, in 2019. That will also be known as MGM Plus. ▪️

Epix 2 will become MGM Plus Hits, Epix Hits will become MGM Plus Marquee and Epix Drive-In becomes MGM Plus Drive In.

The launch of the new brand coincides with the Season 3 premiere of Godfather of Harlem. The network said Season 2 set records for single-title streams in a single day across Epix’s digital channels.

Two new original series have been greenlit to run on MGM Plus: Hotel Cocaine from Epix Studios, and Belgravia: The Next Chapter, a Carnival Films co-production with Epix Studios, distributed by NBCUniversal Global Distribution.

Epix has also greenlit orders for two docuseries, one about the unsolved haunted house Amityville murders from Sony’s B17 Entertainment, the other about the San Francisco music scene from 1965 to 1975 from Jigsaw Productions in association with Amblin Television and the Kennedy/Marshall Co.

“MGM is one of the most iconic and beloved brands from the golden age of entertainment,” said Michael Wright, head of MGM Plus. “This rebrand is a promise to existing and new viewers that MGM Plus is the place to find television that reflects and celebrates the legacy of the iconic MGM brand - cinematic programming with sophisticated storytelling that entertains, delights, surprises, and transports. MGM is television for movie lovers.”

The company said the new MGM Plus logo “will embody the rich legacy of MGM, while at the same time orienting the brand toward the future. It reimagines the rich, 100-year history of MGM’s classic art-deco typeface in a contemporary and forward-facing fashion. The typography and brighter palette combine the rich legacy of the classic MGM brand with the forward-learning spirit of the next generation streaming service."

Imaginary Forces helped with the branding. ■

Amazon's first exclusive regular-season presentation of NFL Thursday Night Football generated record signups over a three-hour window, comparable to shopping events such as Prime Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the online retail giant said. 

“Our first exclusive TNF broadcast delivered the most watched night of primetime in the U.S. in the history of Prime Video,” Jay Marine, VP of Prime Video and global head of sports for Amazon, said in an internal memo leaked to the media. “This is a massive achievement."

The game featured a memorable NFC West matchup, with quarterback Patrick Mahomes rallying the Kansas City Chiefs over the San Diego Chargers and counterpart Justin Hebert 27-24. 

How many viewers saw it on television? Unclear. 

Also read: As NFL Kicks Off, Who’s Watching Amazon’s Thursday Night Football? (Bloom)

Amazon, which assumed total control of the TNF franchise with an 11-year deal that pays the NFL around $1 billion per season, has told advertisers to expect around 12 million viewers to tune in each week for TNF, with the base of U.S. Prime Video subscribers standing at around 80 million. 

Very dialed-in Sports Business Journal reporter Jon Ourand has said that a more realistic performance for a competitive game is around 5 million - 7 million viewers. He called the 33.6/57 share rating in Kansas City "probably a little bit below what TV networks typically get from that market."

TNF is coming off its best audience season since 2015, averaging 16.4 million viewers in the 2021 season running across FOX broadcaset, NFL Network, Amazon Prime Video, FOX Deportes, NFL digital and Fox Sports digital, along with Twitch and Yahoo Sports mobile platforms. 

Critics of the Ring doorbell surveillance technology have written MGM asking it not to debut its new syndicated reality series, Ring Nation, hosted by Wanda Sykes.

The show is a Ring take on Candid Camera and other video-clip shows that have a long history on TV.

In a letter from Fight for the Future and over 40 groups including Media Justice, the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, and the Tech & Immigration Policing Project, they asked Mark Burnett, chairman of MGM Television, and Barry Poznick, president of MGM Unscripted Television, to pull the plug on the show before it debuts later this month.

They said that while the show does get the consent of those appearing on the program, that “in no way protects against the harms stemming from Ring’s surveilling communities at large, especially marginalized communities targeted by police.”

Ring Nation is a synergistic play from MGM parent Amazon, which also owns the Ring product.

Amazon had not returned a request for comment at press time. ■

Amazon said that the first episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, drew more than 25 million global viewers on its first day, the biggest premiere in the history of Prime Video.

The two-episode debut broke all records for Prime Video, said the company, which reportedly spent $715 million on the eight-episodes series, including $250 million for the rights alone, making it one of the most-expensive productions in TV history.

Amazon's J.R.R. Tolkien saga comes hot on the heels of the debut of HBO's House of the Dragon, a prequel to its mega hit Game of Thrones. On its first day last month, HBO said House of the Dragon attracted 9.986 million views across linear and streaming across the U.S., Latin America and the Europe, Middle East and Asia regions. It was the biggest series debut in HBO history, according to HBO. 

A few days after its premiere, HBO said it had renewed House of the Dragon for a second season, noting that it had been seen by more than 20 million viewers across HBO and HBO Max in the U.S. 

“It is somehow fitting that Tolkien’s stories - among the most popular of all time, and what many consider to be the true origin of the fantasy genre - have led us to this proud moment. I am so grateful to the Tolkien Estate – and to our showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, executive producer Lindsey Weber, cast and crew - for their tireless collaborative efforts and boundless creative energy.  And it is the tens of millions of fans watching – clearly as passionate about Middle-earth as we are – who are our true measure of success.”

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power launched exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide. The finale is set for Oct. 14. 

According to Amazon, the epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and takes viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and one of the greatest villains that ever flowed from Tolkien's pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness.

The series is led by showrunners and executive producers J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay. They are joined by executive producers Lindsey Weber, Callum Greene, J.A. Bayona, Belén Atienza, Justin Doble, Jason Cahill, Gennifer Hutchison, Bruce Richmond, and Sharon Tal Yguado, and producers Ron Ames and Christopher Newman. Wayne Che Yip is co-executive producer and directs along with J.A. Bayona and Charlotte Brändström.  ■

Amazon Prime Video will kick off its exclusive NFL Thursday Night Football package on September 15 when the Los Angeles Chargers meet the Kansas City Chiefs. The regular-season schedule highlights the streaming service's growing lineup of live sports programming.

But TNF, which premiered on August 25 with an exclusive Houston Texans-San Francisco 49ers preseason game, is just part of a mix of live sports events the streaming service hopes to use to lure in fans. The Prime Video lineup also includes regular-season WNBA basketball games, mixed martial arts events from One Championship and exclusive in-market New York Yankees baseball games and Seattle Storm WNBA games.  

Amazon VP of global sports video Marie Donoghue recently spoke to Multichannel News about Prime Video’s live sports aspirations and what the genre adds to the overall value of the streaming service. Here’s an edited transcript of that discussion. 

MCN: How do you see live sports programming fitting into the overall value proposition for Prime Video? 

Marie Donoghue: As you know, Prime is a membership benefit, and so live marquee sports is what we call a headline benefit. We have the NFL — probably the most popular sport in the U.S. — with our Thursday Night Football deal, which we’re really, really excited to launch this season with our first game on September 15. It’s a massive investment for us and we've based it on our track record working with the NFL over the last several years, as well as the experience we've had in Europe. We've been showing top-tier sports for several years with the Premier League in the U.K. and the Champions League in Italy and Germany, Ligue 1 in France and the U.S. Open tennis tournament in the U.K. We know for sure that top marquee sports programming really resonates with our customers, so it's become an essential part of our service in several countries. 

MCN: What drew Prime Video to the WNBA and how has it performed for the streaming service?

MD: We’re huge fans of the WNBA, and overall we saw increased viewership this season for the WNBA. Last year they were developing the Commissioner’s Cup (the WNBA's mid-season tournament), so we thought it would be an awesome opportunity to serve our fans. I think fans really liked it because you get to see the top teams compete.

MCN: Along with the NFL and WNBA, Prime Video has also streamed live local games for such teams as the WNBA’s Seattle Storm, Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees and MLS’s Seattle Sounders FC. Is that a strategy that you will look to continue with other teams in other sports? 

MD: Yes, we look at everything. We always consider whether there is a way for us to improve the experience, the accessibility and the value for fans. We found with the Sounders, the Yankees and the Storm that that was all true. We were able to reach an audience that isn't reached by the traditional pay TV bundle, and we've also been able to provide great value to our subscribers — you get the games with your Prime membership. 

MCN: Prime Video has also stepped into the combat-sports ring with One Championship. Does that franchise offer a different sports appeal to Prime Video subscribers than the WNBA or NFL fotball? 

MD: One Championship is the world’s largest martial arts organization, and we’re bringing them live in primetime to the U.S. and Canada exclusively. They are primarily based out of Singapore, but next year we’ll have some events from the US. Those fans are incredibly passionate and engaged and the One Championship organization is fairly unique, and I’m particularly pleased that they treat female athletes equally. We’re really excited about working with them. ■