Three years after its initial launch, Amazon has changed the name of free, ad-supported streaming service IMDb TV to Amazon Freevee, a move that it hopes will differentiate it from its online movie and TV database, IMDb.com, while attracting cost-conscious consumers who don’t want to pay for Amazon Prime Video. 

Freevee is the second name change for the Amazon service since it debuted in 2019 as IMDB Freedive and later that year unveiled a new moniker, IMDb TV. Freevee was scheduled to become the official name of the service on April 27, but it’s been going through its one changes over the past few years. Once mainly a vehicle for Amazon to dump less costly programming that wasn’t found on its subscription service Amazon Prime Video, IMDb TV has been spending more on originals.

Amazon bills Freevee as a "modern TV network," replacing easy-watching experiene of broadcast TV with half the ad load.

Other new programming was expected to be unveiled at Freevee’s NewFront presentation on May 2. 

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How Can I Get Amazon Freevee? 

To get Amazon Freevee, customers need to establish a free Amazon.com account, and can then access the Freevee app at no charge. The app is available for Fire TV, Roku, Android TV, Google TV, Apple TV, Samsung smart TVs (TV models 2017-2021), LG smart TVs (TV models 2018+), Comcast XFinity X1 and Flex, Microsoft Xbox One and Series X/S, Sony PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, iPhone, iPad, Android mobile devices, Fire Tablets, and on the Amazon website. 

Freevee also is paired with Amazon’s Prime Video service, which in turn is tied to the mega online retailer’s Amazon Prime. But unlike Amazon Prime Video, Freevee includes advertising. 

Amazon Prime members can also access Freevee content via the Amazon Prime Video app, which intersperses Freevee shows and movies within the Prime Video subscription smorgasbord. Freevee shows are differentiated with a tag that says the show has ads. 

How Much Does Amazon Freevee Cost? 

Indeed, just like the name implies, Freevee is indeed free. It also is one of many free services contained within Amazon Prime, which costs about $139 per year (or $14.95 per month) and offers subscribers free shipping on Amazon purchases. Consumers also can buy a solo Amazon Prime Video subscription (no free shipping or other perks), for $8.99 monthly, that also includes access to Freevee.  

 What Shows Can I Watch on Amazon Freevee? 

When it launched in 2019, IMDb TV was mainly a vehicle for old movies and TV shows like Bewitched and The Beverly Hillbillies, later branching out into originals, with Judy Justice,  the latest iteration in the Judge Judy franchise; Alex Rider; and Time Wasters. In the past two years, IMDb TV has beefed up its content lineup, striking several content deals to bring its subscribers popular programming. In 2019 it picked up NBCUniversal’s Chicago Fire and Friday Night Lights and in 2020, a deal with The Walt Disney Co. brought shows like Lost, Malcolm in The Middle, Desperate Housewives, and My So-Called Life to the lineup.  

With the name change to Freevee, Amazon said it plans to expand the original content on the service by 70% this year. Its most high-profile original -- Bosch: Legacy -- a spinoff of the Amazon Prime Video stalwart Bosch, is set to debut on May 6. Other new shows include home-design series (Hollywood Houselift with Jeff Lewis); Sprung, a new comedy series from  My Name Is Earl, Raising Hope and The Guest Book creator Greg Garcia; and High School, a drama/comedy based on the New York Times bestselling memoir from indie recording artists Tegan and Sara Quin. 

Also in the Freevee lineup are movies like Bride Wars, 50 Shades of Grey, A League of Their Own and classic TV shows from the 50’s (Perry Mason), 60’s (Password, Batman, Dragnet and Adam-12); 70’s (Columbo, The Rockford Files and Little House on the Prairie); 80’s (Magnum, P.I., Who’s the Boss? and 90’s (3rd Rock from the Sun, Step By Step and Unsolved Mysteries) and 2000’s (My Name is Earl and Boston Legal) to name just a few. In addition, Freevee has access to past cable hits Mad Men, Lie to Me; Duck Dynasty; and Anthony Bourdain: A Cook’s Tour. ￭

Amazon's free, ad-supported streaming service, IMDb TV, will be rebranded as "Amazon Freevee," effective April 27. 

The service, which blends AVOD offerings and FAST linear channels, launched in January 2019 as IMDb Freedive and soon thereafter rechristened as IMDb TV, named after 1998 Amazon acquisition Internet Movie Database. 

Reports started leaking out late last year that Amazon was looking at a catchier name for a free service that has already tripled in usage in the last two years. 

“Our new name clearly communicates who we are: An easy-to-navigate streaming service, available to users for free, whenever and wherever they choose to watch some of the greatest Original and licensed content available," said Ashraf Alkarmi, director of Freevee.

Amazon also said it's planning to expand Freevee original series by 70% this year. This will include the anticipated May 6 debut of Bosch: Legacy, a spinoff of Amazon Prime Video stalwart original Bosch; new home-design series Hollywood Houselift with Jeff Lewis; the Greg Garcia comedy series Sprung; and High School, based on recording artists Tegan and Sara Quin's New York Times best-selling memoir.

Freevee will announce additional new shows at its NewFront presentation on May 2.

“We’re looking forward to building on this momentum with an increasing slate of inventive and broadly appealing Originals, and are excited to establish Freevee as the premier AVOD service with content audiences crave," said Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios.

The platform, which expanded into the UK in September, also has plans to enter Germany late this year.

The erstwhile IMDb TV has its free on-demand offerings blended with Prime Video subscription and rental/sale transactional wares within the broader Amazon Prime Video app. 

It also has a standalone app that's supported by most connected TV and mobile platforms. 

Amazon bills Freevee as a "modern television network," attempting to create a broad-skewing broadcast network experience with what it claims is half the advertising load. ■

Roku said Monday that it has reached a multiyear extension to continue support of the Amazon Prime Video and IMDb TV (now Amazon Freevee) apps. 

Neither Roku or Amazon announced terms of the deal. Roku stock surged around 7% as of early afternoon trading on the Nasdaq. 

Also read: Roku Gets Boost From Analyst, Says Int'l Growth Is Still in 'Early Innings' ... but Stock Keeps a Fallin'

The Information reported back in November that Roku's agreement to support Amazon's fast-growing ad-supported video-on-demand platform, IMDb TV, was set to expire at the end of 2021. 

Even though Amazon markets separate apps for its Amazon Prime Video SVOD service and IMDb TV, the latter is now an inextricable part of Amazon's broader streaming offering, with the online retail giant mixing free, ad-supported IMDb TV tiles with its Prime Video subscription and rental-sale wares in one big Amazon Prime Video interface. 

Did this mean that loss of IMDb TV would take down all of Amazon for Roku's 60.1 million active accounts? 

Making the issue even more unclear: Just a few days after The Information report, Scott Rosenberg, Roku's outgoing platform business chief, insisted there were no negotiations happening at the time between Roku and Amazon, and none needed. 

"Despite what you may have read, our Amazon agreement is not up for renewal or in negotiations at this time," Rosenberg said during Roku's Q3 earnings. 

Regardless, the news further impacted Roku's cratering Wall Street fortunes, which were, at the time, already affected by an ongoing distribution tiff with Google over the YouTube and YouTube TV apps. Roku reached a deal with Google in December that ironed out that kerfuffle. ■

The move of viewers online to stream television is creating an advertising business opportunity for Amazon, which dominated as consumers ventured online to do their shopping.

As ratings for traditional television have fallen, making it harder for marketers to reach large numbers of consumers, they’re turning to connected-TV services, but the rules there are different and different players are making promises, some that can be kept, some that won’t be.

The digital retail giant’s Amazon Ads unit is ready to step into that void, making the competition the networks have seen coming from tech companies more immediate.

“Streaming TV viewership continues to grow and brands are recognizing this shift,” said Alan Moss, VP, global advertising sales at Amazon Ads.

Also: NFL Deal Gives Amazon Ad Business a Boost: Analyst 

“They’re increasingly adding streaming TV to their marketing mix and we think we’re uniquely positioned to help brands who have historically advertised on traditional TV navigate these viewership changes, build great connections with the most-relevant audiences wherever they’re watching across Amazon, including IMDb TV and Twitch,” Moss said. 

Amazon is attracting viewers by investing in content. More originals are appearing on IMDb TV, Amazon’s free ad-supported streaming service, and Amazon also closed its acquisition of MGM, giving it James Bond, Rocky, Legally Blonde and other attractive intellectual properties.

But when it comes to television, nothing moves the needle like NFL football and Amazon Prime Video will have the exclusive national telecast of Thursday Night Football starting this fall. (Amazon Prime Video is generally ad free, except for its sports programming).

Moss said Amazon Ads has already begun making its Thursday Night Football pitch to advertisers, especially official NFL sponsors, which are some of the biggest spenders on TV advertising. 

“Amazon Ads is offering brands several opportunities to get involved with TNF,” Moss said. 

“This includes using our streaming TV ads to reach NFL fans throughout games on Prime Video and Twitch, and increasing brand awareness through sponsorship opportunities during the pregame, pre-kick, halftime and post-game shows,” he said. “We're really excited to work with brands that will want to get in early and be involved in the evolution of the TNF experience.”

Amazon is also getting ready to make its presentation at the NewFronts in May.

Moss said the pitch has gotten a good response, so far. “We’re feeling good about where we are at this time.”

“It’s the ‘shiny new toy’ that everyone is excited about for sure,” one media buyer who has heard Amazon’s pitch said. The buyer said that so far most of Amazon’s pitch is for traditional NFL broadcast sponsorships, such as halftime and pregame. 

“But there is talk about ‘the possibilities,” the buyer said, adding that Amazon’s TNF packages are very expensive compared to what Fox had been charging, particularly for its post-game programming. “They have to start somewhere, but I expect the market to course-correct it.”

Amazon is reportedly paying about $1 billion a year for exclusive national rights to Thursday Night Football. Fox paid $660 million, but Prime Video and NFL Network had simulcasts of the games.

Moss said that the overall approach for Amazon Ads is that by creating great consumer experiences, it helps advertisers achieve better campaign results.

“With streaming TV we believe we can best deliver value to our customers and advertisers by enabling premium ad-supported content, engaging viewers through reimagined ad experiences, helping advertisers efficiently reach relevant audiences at scale, and providing high fidelity measurement solutions to really tie it all together,” Moss said. 

Those reimagined ad experiences include interactive messages that Amazon began running on the IMDb TV app on Fire TV. 

Through the app, Amazon is able to turn a traditionally passive ad viewing experience into one that “invites customers to easily take an Amazon shopping action using their voice or the Fire TV remote,” Moss said.

Amazon Ads also offers opportunities for advertisers to present content, buy pre-roll bumpers and buy first positions in mid-roll ad pods. It also offers advertisers the opportunity to sponsor shows with limited commercial interruptions, although Moss said IMDb TV’s ad load is already about 50% less than what appears normally on broadcast TV.

Amazon's streaming TV ads and Twitch reach a monthly audience of 135 million unduplicated viewers across the U.S., Moss said.

“We strive to help brands efficiently connect with these viewers using Amazon audience segments, which are informed by shopping and streaming signals similar to how [advertisers] buy display ads with us,” he said.

“Ultimately, the measure of how your brand and message are resonating with customers is your campaign results and reaching the right audiences and growing engagement is important,” Moss added. “But doing this successfully requires really high-fidelity measurement.” 

At a time when the TV business is furiously trying to develop new methodologies for counting viewers and measuring the impact of ads, Amazon is also working to provide more actionable and reliable insights for brands.

Moss said Amazon Ads provides both first- and third-party metrics designed to “help brands understand the full-funnel impact of streaming TV ad campaigns across the consumer journey, both on and off Amazon.”

All of this is attracting traditional Amazon online retail advertisers to start advertising on streaming television across Amazon, Moss said.

“We’re also seeing some traditional TV advertisers who don’t necessarily sell on Amazon finding that our streaming offerings offer a great opportunity for them and one that really works for them,” he said.

Moss notes that brands can’t buy commercials that stream on Amazon the exact same way they traditionally book ads on TV.

“While we do offer some of those options, like engaging demo audiences, what we’ve seen is increases of around 40% on average [on the advertisers' key performance indicators] when brands use our interest-based audiences in their Amazon streaming TV campaigns,” he said. “That's been really compelling.”

Amazon finds interest-based audiences using its own first party data. “Advertisers can also bring their own first-party audiences” using the Amazon Marketing Cloud, the company’s media measurement and analytics clean room. “That’s really the best way to bring in that kind of information and help to really build, measure and optimize campaigns," Moss said.

For measurement, Amazon works with recognized measurement companies including Nielsen. It has also enabled more than 20 third-party measurement vendors to help advertisers understand and compare their performance against industry benchmarks.

Moss said Amazon was looking forward to the NewFronts. It is too early to share specifics of Amazon’s NewFront pitch, Moss said, but he said: “At a high level, we believe we can deliver value by enabling premium ad-supported content and engaging viewers through new ad experiences like interactive video ads, and helping advertisers efficiently reach relevant audiences, at scale, and providing great high-fidelity measurements.” ■

While the potential to some day produce new "James Bond" and "Rocky" movies out of Amazon Studios provided a sexy news angle to Amazon's just-closed $8.45 billion purchase of MGM, it's the infusion of an MGM library featuring more than 4,000 film titles and 17,000 TV series episodes that will likely have more immediate impact on Amazon's video business.

Undoubtedly, Amazon will try to monetize many of these MGM library titles -- which include films Silence of the Lambs, Thelma & Louise, Midnight Cowboy, Fiddler on the Roof, Dances with Wolves and Raging Bull -- through advertising via its growing IMDb TV platform. And that will further add scrutiny to an merchandising strategy that is somewhat unique to Amazon -- regardless as to whether a title is part of the Amazon Prime Video subscription smorgasbord, or part of the IMDb TV AVOD portfolio, or a "transactional" recent release movie title available for rent, Amazon bundles them all together under one "Prime Video" app interface. 

Amazon indicates already paid (Prime Video subscription), ad-supported and rental content with little labels that go in the upper left hand corner of thumbnails on the Prime Video interface. 

Also read: The Amazon Prime Video ‘Purge’: Why the Massive SVOD Library Appears to Have Fewer Titles to Binge on These Days

On Thursday, tech blog Protocol predicted that Amazon will "double down" on ad sales, with MGM content on IMDb TV being a primary focus. 

Amazon, Protocol said, "seems perfectly content using IMDb TV as a vehicle to stream ads to Prime subscribers as well, setting it apart from the way Disney and others approach advertising in a subscription video context. Instead of providing a cheaper tier to customers willing to watch ads, Amazon simply presents IMDb TV as a free add-on."

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

Speaking at a Deutsche Bank investor event earlier this week, Paramount Global CFO Naveen Chopra didn't call out Amazon by name. But he seemed to come pretty close to implicating the tech giant when he remarked, “If you want to have both ad-supported and subscription, we think it is important to keep those things separate. 

"It’s very confusing for customers to have all that in one service and not really understand, ‘Is this free? Is this pay? What content do I get and where?’ We have the ability with Pluto to really shout from the rooftops that Pluto is free. And then we have the ability to position Paramount+ as the destination for high-quality content," Chopra added. ■ 

Amazon’s IMDb TV (now Amazon Freevee) announced its has picked up season two of Pretty Hard Cases, which will start streaming for free on April 22.

Pretty Hard Cases is a buddy cop drama featuring female detectives played by Meredith MacNeill and Adrienne C. Moore. In season two, they face a new-age gang that doesn’t operate by the old rules. 

The show is part of an original programming push at IMDb TV. On Tuesday, the channel announced the renewal of Judy Justice, its most-viewed original show.

Commissioned by CBC, Canada’s national public broadcaster, Pretty Hard Cases is produced by Cameron Pictures in association with CBC and Universal International Studios, a division of Universal Studio Group. The show was nominated for 10 Canadian Screen Awards.

The series is created by Sherry White and Tassie Cameron, who also serve as co-showrunners. Sherry White, Tassie Cameron, Amy Cameron and Alex Patrick are executive producers. Wanda Chaffey produces and Caledonia Brown is associate producer. The series is distributed by NBCUniversal Global Distribution. ■

Amazon’s IMDb TV (now Amazon Freevee) said it has ordered a second season of Judy Justice, featuring Judge Judy Sheindlin.

Season one started in November and original episodes will run through  April 15. 

IMDb said that Judy Justice it its top original program in first streams and hours watched. More than 25 million hours of the show have been viewed to date.

Bailiff Kevin Rasco, court stenographer Whitney Kumar, and law clerk Sarah Rose will be returning for season two with Judge Judy.

Also: Amazon's IMDb TV Spins 'Judy Justice' into It's Own FAST Channel

“With Judy Justice, we saw a bold opportunity to reinforce our vision of a modern television network, by embracing daytime television programming and uniquely offering IMDb TV customers new episodes every weekday,” said Lauren Anderson and Ryan Pirozzi, co-heads of content and programming at IMDb TV. “We look forward to delivering another season of binge-worthy justice as Judge Judy Sheindlin continues her unprecedented reign as one of the most iconic and esteemed personalities in entertainment.”

IMDb, a free, ad supported service, has been ramping up its original programming. Upcoming IMDb TV Originals include Bosch: Legacy, the spinoff of the Prime Video series Bosch, Greg Garcia’s comedy series Sprung; a new home design series from Jeff Lewis; On Call, a half-hour drama from executive producer Dick Wolf; and High School, a scripted series adapted for television by Clea DuVall and based on the New York Times best-selling memoir by Grammy-nominated, platinum recording artists Tegan and Sara Quin.

But adding Sheindlin, a TV mainstay for decades was a big catch. 

"I am over the moon and couldn't be happier with the Judy Justice reception in streaming," said Judge Judy. "Amazon has been a terrific partner and I look forward to our continued collaboration."

Judy Justice is executive produced and directed by Randy Douthit and co-executive produced by Amy Freisleben. Scott Koondel is also an executive producer. ■

IMDb TV (now Amazon Freevee) said its standalone app is now available for newer model Samsung smart TVs, and it will be compatible with older models soon.

The app for Amazon's free ad-supported streaming service is available for Samsung smart TV models made between 2019-2021 starting Friday, with users merely having to visit Samsung's app store. 

An IMDb TV app for models made between 2017-2018 will be available "in the coming days," Amazon said. 

IMDb TV can also be accessed via the broader Amazon Prime Video app, which has been compatible with most Samsung TV models for years. 

For Latasha Gillespie, executive head of global diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at Amazon Studios, Amazon Prime Video and IMDb TV, DEI efforts are about achieving measurable results, not necessarily changing individuals’ hearts.

“I can’t change hearts — I’m not God — but I can change what you do between 9 and 5,” Gillespie said. “What people have to keep in mind, in our line of work, is that we don’t do DEI for the sake of DEI. You have to understand that the goal of doing DEI is about changing and driving business outcomes.”

Aaron Walton, founder and CEO of multicultural agency Walton Isaacson, said of Gillespie: “That’s one of the reasons I think we really connected — obviously, through the important work of what DEI can do internally in terms of making team members feel welcome, respected and included in decisions that are made at an organization. What I love about Latasha is she also understands how it can help drive revenue and profitability and how more inclusivity can help a brand reach a larger target.”

Non-Traditional Rise

Gillespie’s journey to the center of an up-and-coming Hollywood studio is not an obvious one. She got her bachelor’s degree in finance from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and spent 20 years working in corporate at equipment giant Caterpillar. In 2015, she was asked to lead the company’s human resources across Africa, the Middle East, Commonwealth of Independent States/Russia and Asia-Pacific and thus relocated her family to Singapore. 

When Amazon called in 2016, she wasn’t prepared to decamp to Seattle, but the opportunity — to set DEI culture and policy for a giant, growing tech leader — was ultimately too appealing to refuse. So Gillespie, her husband and teenage son moved again in January 2017. (Her older son was at Howard University in Washington, D.C.)

“My role was to set strategy for the corporation, accruing it to something that actually moved the needle for the corporation,” she said. “There had been a lot of activity [in the DEI space] without a lot of measurable results.” 

While the jump from Caterpillar to Amazon Inc. was somewhat overwhelming — because Gillespie was tasked with changing culture at a dispersed and disparate company of hundreds of thousands of employees — the move to Amazon Studios, Prime Video and IMDb in November 2018 represented another total shift in Gillespie’s industry and focus.

At Caterpillar, Gillespie had helped employees understand the importance of DEI through the company value of safety — asserting that good DEI practices create emotional safety for employees. At Amazon, the top value is customer obsession, Gillespie said.

“We move heaven and earth to get a package to you in two days, we read your comments and we have an easy return policy,” she said. “Similarly, are we equitably obsessing over all our customers? In order to make DEI initiatives work, you have to tie them to the business results and you have to make it organic.” 

At Amazon Studios, Gillespie and her team have instituted an inclusion policy and playbook. Any Amazon-branded production has to meet the goal of “30-30 20-20” — no more than 30% of department heads and seconds can be white men or women, and at least 20% have to be men of color and 20% have to be women of color. As a result of Gillespie’s work, the company also has set goals around religious faiths, LGBTQIA and differently-abled people.

Greenlighting Equity

Gillespie and her team also were instrumental in changing Amazon Studios’s greenlight process to make sure it is developing and producing inclusive and representational content using diverse talent above and below the line and in front of and behind the camera. Once per quarter, Gillespie and her team meet with Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke and senior business leaders to go over the data.

“I love her infectious enthusiasm for the business and for building culture,” Salke said. “She’s a real superstar in how she interacts with people and talent. She’s a very dynamic, passionate, creative, thoughtful and incredibly smart executive — that was very apparent to me from the first time I met her. It’s almost like because she wasn’t raised within the entertainment industry, she doesn’t have that baggage and she doesn’t feel like she has to stay in a lane.”

Said Gillespie: “I have the best job in the world. My goal is customer delight. I don’t have to chase advertising dollars or subscriptions, but I do have to chase customer delight. … I want to make sure that our entire team is committed to creating entertaining, binge-worthy content.” ■

The Pet Collective, a digital video property owned and operated by Trusted Media Brands (TMB), will launch a 24/7 streaming channel on Amazon's IMDb TV (now Amazon Freevee). The channel is live on IMDb TV starting Wednesday (February 23).

The pet-focused channel receives more than five million hours of viewership across multiple platforms. It is available on Samsung TV Plus, Vizio WatchFree Plus, Pluto TV, The Roku Channel and Xumo.

Popular series on The Pet Collective include Show Us Your Pets, which features Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, Tori Kelly and Iain Armitage; Pet Obsessed; Best Pets of the Month; Animals Unscripted; and That’s My Pet. The Pet Collective will also run Puppython for National Puppy Day (March 23).

"Pets are a global obsession, and The Pet Collective brings that enthusiasm to the streaming TV dial like no other property in the world," TMB senior VP of streaming Jill Goldfarb said. "Our streaming TV channels continue to grow at an incredible rate, and to be able to expand our distribution even further and reach millions more with IMDb TV is extremely exciting." ■

IMDb TV (now Amazon Freevee), Amazon’s ad supported streaming service, said it will premiere Bug Out, a true-crime docuseries about the largest theft of insects in history, on March 4.

The show is part of IMDb TV’s original programming effort, designed to help it stand out in the increasing competitive ad-supported streaming fields. IMDb original programming also includes the spy story Alex Rider, Leverage:Redemption, Judy Justice and the Dick Wolf produced On Call.

Streamers ranging from Roku to Fox’s Tubi are also churning out original programming to attract viewers and advertisers.

Also:.Amazon Makes Upfront Deals With 40% More Advertisers

Bug Out looks at the bizarre thefts of $50,000 worth of living bugs from the Philadelphia Insectarium. The show’s four episodes feature interviews with insect collectors, bug smuggler and law enforcement offices.

From The Cinemart, Bug Out is executive produced by Jenner Furst, Julia Willoughby Nason, and Michael Gasparro, and directed by Ben Feldman. ■

IMDb TV (now Amazon Freevee) will launch a new FAST channel for Judy Justice on January 24, the same day the Amazon ad-supported streaming service debuts five new episodes of the court show. 

IMDb TV has close to 50 free ad-supported TV (FAST) channels, including recent additions such as The Price is Right: The Barker Era and Supermarket Sweep.

IMDb TV, which fashioned a new reality court series around retired Manhattan judge and longtime syndicated star Judy Sheindlin, debuted the first three Judy Justice episodes back on November 1, with a total of 45 installments posting before the series went on hiatus on December 17. 

That total is apparently enough for Amazon to feel comfortable programming a linear FAST channel, which will line the show up in a grid-like format that fans of Sheindlin's long-running, massively successful broadcast syndication series, Judge Judy, might be more comfortable with. ■

Amazon has added app support for Sony PlayStation 5 consoles for its fast-growing AVOD platform, IMDb TV (now Amazon Freevee). 

The distribution adds to previous device launches on Roku and Android TV and Google TV platforms, PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Xbox Series X/S game consoles, and Comcast Xfinity X1 and Flex CPE. IMDb TV is also supported by Apple iOS and Android mobile devices, and of course, the full line of Amazon Fire TV gadgets. 

Through the end of October, Sony had sold 13.4 million of its current-generation PlayStation 5 consoles worldwide. Proliferation of the platform has been impacted by the global chip shortage. 

Amazon doesn't release many user metrics for its three-year-old AVOD platform, but it did say in early May that IMDb TV viewership jumped 138% year-over-year. At that time, Amazon also said it had around 120 million monthly viewers for its over-the-top kingdom, which includes Amazon Prime Video and Twitch. 

IMDb TV is now a destination for original shows from Amazon Studios. For example, on Friday, the free-to-consumer streaming service will debut the second season of prep sports documentary Uninterrupted's Top Class: The Life and Times of the Sierra Canyon Trailblazers.

The Bob Ross Channel has been launched by Amazon’s IMDb-TV ad supported streaming service.

The channel, launched in 2020, has become a staple on platforms carrying live streaming TV channels. 

Also: Amazon Ponders Another Rebrand of IMDb TV

The channel features episodes of The Joy of Painting, which ran for 31 seasons and showcases the artist Bob Ross explaining in his unique way how to make his soothing landscapes. 

"Many of us have grown up with Bob Ross, and even though we never knew him, he was a part of our life," said Jennifer Soltesz, VP, business development & strategy at Cinedigm, which distributes the channel. "I think now, more than ever, we could all use the happiness and calmness he exudes in our lives. Through launching The Bob Ross Channel on IMDb TV, we are proud to have introduced Bob Ross to a whole new generation of viewers across all major streaming platforms." ■

Amazon is pondering yet another name change for its nearly-three-year-old free streaming service, IMDb TV (now Amazon Freevee), The Information reports. 

Among the potential new names to the ad-supported streaming service being thrown up on the ol' white board: "Zon," as in the last three letters of "Amazon." 

Other names being considered are "Free TV," which is also used by ad-supported streaming rivals including Redbox, and "Free Streaming TV." (Apparently, the same marketing dynamics have have rendered most SVOD services to be named "plus" are  are also at play here.)

According to the report, citing The Information's usual collection of unnamed supposedly internal sourcing, IMDb TV is considered too cumbersome to achieve Amazon's growth agenda for the platform.

We asked Amazon reps for comment, but comment did they not. 

The Information report comes at a time when Amazon is making significant original content investments into IMDb TV, such as the recently monikered Bosch spinoff series Bosch: Legacy, which is set to debut next year. 

Indeed, IMDb TV now has a pivotal roll in Amazon's distribution strategy, with the company meshing its AVOD, TVOD and SVOD titles in search on the Amazon Prime Video app in an almost inextricable way. 

And it wouldn't be the AVOD platform's first name change--it quietly launched in January 2019 as "Freedive." ■

Roku, which is already in a bitter negotiation with Google over ongoing support of the YouTube and YouTube TV apps, is reportedly poised to also lock horns with Amazon. 

According to The Information, Roku's deal to support Amazon's AVOD app, IMDb TV (now Amazon Freevee), is set to expire at the end of the year. And as there are between Roku and Google, there are plenty of complicating factors. 

In a statement to us, a Roku spokesperson said, "We have renewal discussions with dozens of partners each year in the normal course of business that are focused on achieving mutually beneficial agreements providing our customers the best possible user experience and value.  Our Amazon agreement is not up for renewal at this time and there are currently no negotiations underway.”

According to The Information, Amazon now bundles platform support negotiations for IMDb TV with its much more compelling Amazon Prime Video app. So while Roku, the No. 1 supplier of connected TV OS in the U.S. with more than 55 million users, might not lose too many users by not offering IMDb TV in its Channel Store, not having the Prime Video app would definitely hurt business. 

According to The information, another hiccup "will be access to viewing data. During last year’s discussions between Amazon and Roku, Amazon pushed for detailed viewing data about what Roku subscribers watch across all apps, according to people familiar with the talks. If Amazon got such data, it could match that information with what it knows about customer purchases on its site and figure out who buys goods on Amazon after seeing ads on the Roku platform, the people said."

Also read: Roku Gets Support from Congress in Fight Against Google

A source familiar with Roku's relationship with Amazon called the report premature and flawed. 

Roku is already engaged in a protracted battle with Alphabet/Google over support of the YouTube and YouTube TV apps. Tensions first emerged in April, when the YouTube TV virtual pay TV app was removed from the Roku Channel Store, and Alphabet responded by embedding functionality for the YouTube TV service into the main YouTube app. 

It simmered over the summer from there, but both Roku and Alphabet ramped things up in a big way several weeks ago with rhetorical volleys at each other. 

In December, Roku's deal to support the flagship YouTube app will expire, too, signaling a major escalation of the kerfuffle. 

Roku says Alphabet is trying to manipulate search and not play be basic rules that affect all other app makers on the Roku platform. 

Alphabet has been cagey about its issues. But reportedly, it wants to pressure Roku to support the AV1 codec, which would smooth YouTube's transition to the 4K future but also require Roku to up the hardware game of its key smart TV OEM partners. 

Amazon’s IMDb TV free streaming service said it gave the green light to an original comedy from Shea Serrano and Michael Schur called Primo.

Primo, a single camera series, is based on Serrano’s life growing up with his single mom and five uncles in San Antonio.

Serrano, a writer and podcaster with The Ringer, serves as creator and executive producer.

Schur, who created The Good Place, also co-created Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. He executive produced Hacks and Master of None and was a writer-producer of The Office.

“It is a dream to be in business with these two incredible writers. Their individual talents have combined to make an insightful, relevant, and genuinely funny show,” said Lauren Anderson and Ryan Pirozzi, co-heads of content and programming at IMDb TV. “IMDb TV’s commitment to telling broad, timely, and highly entertaining stories is perfectly illustrated in Primo, and we know the series will deeply resonate with our viewers.”

The series will stream exclusively in the U.S and U.K. on IMDb TV, which like other streaming services, is getting more involved in original programming. Judy Justice will have its premiere on IMDb TV on Nov. 1. It will join Leverage: Redemption, a Bosch spin off, Sprung, a Jeff Lewis project, Dick Wolf’s On Call, Alex Winter and Top Class among the IMDb originals.

“Do you remember when the Spurs won the 2014 title after having their hearts broken in the 2013 Finals? That’s what I feel like right now. I couldn’t be happier, I couldn’t be prouder, I couldn’t be more thankful. Honestly, I still kind of can’t even believe that this is happening,” said Serrano.

"When I first met Shea Serrano, I personally guaranteed him that someday I would make him feel like the 2014 Spurs did after winning the NBA championship. I'm thrilled to have achieved my goal. And I'm doubly thrilled to work with him and IMDb TV on this hilarious and heartwarming show," said Schur.

Primo is produced by Amazon Studios and Universal Television. In addition to Serrano and Schur for Fremulon, David Minder for 3 Arts Entertainment and Morgan Sackett are executive producers.

Amazon has begun to restrict outside parties including advertisers and the ad tech companies who serve them from seeing IP addresses of users for its IMDb TV and Twitch streaming platforms, making it harder for them to target consumers and build profiles of them. 

According to Ad Age, Amazon has begun stripping out user IP addresses from data it shares with outside parties on free, ad-supported streaming service IMDb TV and live-streaming service Twitch. 

The move is similar to tactics employed by Apple, which has not only stopped sharing user internet protocol addresses, but also cookies and device IDs.

The changes make it difficult for advertisers and their vendors to know important things, like how many times an individual user has seen an ad. 

“It could have a pretty wide impact,” says Tal Chalozin, chief technology officer at Innovid, a digital video ad tech platform, speaking to Ad Age. “If you’re a marketer looking to engage frequency capping, then you don’t know anything about the home, so it’s harder to do that. All parties are not getting as good of a result as they wanted. Marketers would like to see the data; tech providers rely on it to sell products; for media companies, it makes it harder for them to do targeting, they can’t release the most relevant ads.”

Amazon, of course, owns its own ad network, where it still can control things like frequency capping (how many times a user sees an ad) using the IP addresses it controls. 

But Amazon insists the issue revolves around privacy. 

The company has had policies in place for years that restrict access to information like IP addresses. 

"Under our Appstore Advertising ID Policy, third-party apps that collect information about users’ behaviors in order to display interest-based ads must use the Amazon Advertising ID,” Amazon told Ad Age. “No other identifier or tracking method (e.g., Android ID or IP address) may be used. Customers can reset their Advertising ID or use the interest-based ads setting on their device to manage their advertising preferences.”

Amazon’s free streaming service IMDb TV said season two of Alex Rider will start streaming exclusively on IMDb TV starting Dec. 3 in the U.S. and the U.K.

The second season of Alex Rider will also stream exclusively as an Amazon Original on Prime Video in Australia, Canada, Italy, Germany, and Latin America on Dec. 3.

IMDb TV also released a trailer for season two.

Alex Rider is a spy thriller about a London teenager who has unknowingly trained since childhood for espionage. The show is based on the series of books written by Anthony Horowitz.

Season one started streaming Nov. 13. IMDb TV announced the series had been renewed a few days before that.

“After the success of Season One, I’m thrilled that we’ve been able to reassemble our fantastic cast for this second, action-packed adventure…with the added bonus of Toby Stephens in a key role,” said Anthony Horowitz, author of the Alex Rider franchise.

In season two, Alex wants to return to a normal life, but he’s drawn back into the spy world when a friend’s father is attacked by an old adversary.

Produced by Eleventh Hour Films, the second season of Alex Rider stars Otto Farrant as Alex Rider, Stephen Dillane as Alan Blunt, Vicky McClure as Mrs. Jones, Brenock O’Connor as Tom Harris, Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́ as Jack Starbright, Marli Siu as Kyra, Toby Stephens as Damian Cray, Rakie Ayola as Jo Byrne, and Charithra Chandran as Sabina Pleasance. 

Horowitz serves as an executive producer alongside Eleventh Hour’s Jill Green and Eve Gutierrez, and series writer Guy Burt. The series is distributed by Sony Pictures Television.

Amazon has turned the lights on for its free ad-supported VOD service, IMDb TV (now Amazon Freevee), in the UK.

Starting Wednesday, both Amazon Prime members and non-members will be able to access IMDb TV through the Prime Video app, via the carousel labeled “IMDb TV – Popular Movies and TV - free with ads.” 

Also read: The Amazon Prime Video ‘Purge’: Why the Massive SVOD Library Appears to Have Fewer Titles to Binge on These Days

“IMDb TV has created a free-to-consumer destination by combining a hybrid of exclusive originals from Amazon Studios and highly sought-after movies and television,” said Lauren Anderson and Ryan Pirozzi, co-heads of content and programming, IMDb TV, speaking together in perfect unison for a joint statement. “Today’s UK launch marks a major step in our mission to deliver customers widely appealing content and globally relevant storytelling, through a personalized, free streaming experience.”

For the launch, Amazon is touting the free service's burgeoning originals catalog,  specifically calling out non-fiction shows Luke Bryan: My Dirt Road Diary, Moment of Truth and Top Class: The Life and Times of the Sierra Canyon Trailblazers. 

Whether UK audiences jibe with documentary shows on an American country music performer, NBA legend Michael Jordan and his father, and life and times of high school basketball stars at a rich Southern California high school, respectively, remains to be seen. 

What is notable, however, is the IMDb TV catalog, with Amazon also naming in its press release Wednesday films including Pulp Fiction, Anger Management, The English Patient, as well as TV repeats including  Person of Interest, Community, 2 Broke Girls.

Amazon isn't transparent about a lot of things, and that opacity extends to its various streaming catalogs. And as IMDb TV has become an inextricable part of the overall Amazon Prime Video app experience, it's getting harder and harder to determine what's available as an all-you-can-binge-without-ads offering in the Amazon Prime Video library, vs. what's watchable with ads via IMDb TV, and what's monetized via rental or sale via Amazon Prime Video TVOD. 

The theory of economic elasticity considered, how much does it hurt Amazon Prime membership to negotiate more AVOD deals than SVOD deals going forward, and sell ads against more of its content rather than let it be binged for no additional revenue in the Prime Video smorgasbord?

We asked that question last month to an Amazon rep and received rather cagey answers. 

Not surprisingly, Amazon hasn't released data on how much ad revenue IMDb TV is delivering to it these days. But anecdotally, the figure seems to be growing. A year ago, ad breaks on IMDb TV programs were limited to as few as two a show, and durations often spanned 30 seconds or less. 

Last week, we watched the underrated 2018 Sony Pictures thriller Searching, starring John Cho and Debra Messing. Ad breaks of 90 seconds appeared every 10 minutes. 

Judy Justice, the new show from Judge Judy Sheindlin, will debut on IMDb TV (now Amazon Freevee) on November 1, the Amazon-owned streaming service said Thursday. 

Judy Justice will feature three new members of Sheindlin’s courtroom staff: bailiff Kevin Rasco, stenographer Whitney Kumar and law clerk Sarah Rose, who is also Sheindlin’s granddaughter. 

Like Judge Judy, the new show will be executive produced by Randy Douthit and co-executive produced by Amy Freisleben. Sheindlin, Douthit and Freisleben all worked together on Judge Judy from that show’s outset more than 25 years ago.

"I am probably the luckiest on-air personality in the history of television to have had Randy Douthit and Amy Freisleben shepherd my program for over two decades. They continuously make me look good. With Judy Justice on IMDb TV, the magic continues,” said Sheindlin in a statement. “Our bailiff Kevin has been in charge of my security for the last three years. He comes from law enforcement, has a winning smile, a delightful personality, and is always professional.Whitney was a truly lucky find. A skilled court stenographer for 15 years, she brings warmth, great proficiency, and best of all, can refresh my memory in a heartbeat with her machine. I’ve known Sarah, our law clerk, since she was born. She will be a third-generation female lawyer in our family. She’s smart, sassy, and opinionated. Who knows where she gets those traits?”

Also Read: Pat Sajak, Vanna White Re-Up to Host 'Wheel of Fortune' Through 2023-24 Season

Judge Judy, produced and distributed by CBS Media Ventures, is ending its 25-year run in first-run syndication after this season although the show will continue to air on TV stations in repeats. CMV acquired the Judge Judy library, which includes more than 5,200 episodes, from Sheindlin in 2017 for some $100 million. At that time, Sheindlin intended to retire after the 2020-21 TV season. Based on that, CMV made deals with TV stations to air Judge Judy repeats starting in 2021-22.

Sheindlin later changed her mind about retiring and wanted to remain in first-run production, but by then CMV had already secured contacts with TV stations to air the show in repeats. As a result, Sheindlin hired former CBS distribution executive Scott Koondel to take a new first-run show to the marketplace. Amazon-owned IMDb TV picked up that show last October. 

Judge Judy ends its 25-year run in first-run tied for first with Debmar-Mercury’s Family Feud as the top-rated show in syndication with a 5.6 live plus seven day (most current) season-to-date household rating, according to Nielsen Media Research. 

Is Amazon Prime Video conducting a purge to our binge?

“Something has been decidedly afoot at Amazon Prime Video in the last few months, and it’s time to call attention to it,” Paste Magazine’s Jim Vorel recently wrote. 

Besides the content acquisition executives who work for the major subscription video-on-demand platforms, Vorel probably knows the vast Amazon Prime Video library as well as anyone. 

“When you spend the amount of time we do compiling lists of the best films streaming on all the major streaming services, you can’t help but eventually know those libraries like the back of your hand,” he noted. 

And the Amazon Prime Video library, he said, is “enduring one of the biggest apparent purges of content we’ve ever seen.” 

So how big is Amazon’s Prime Video library? Has it really shrunk? And if so, what’s it been reduced to?

Amazon will only say that its library has “thousands” of titles, and it doesn’t release a specific count of movies and TV shows. Vorel doesn’t know exactly how big it is, either, but he told us in an email conversation that he believes it “dwarfs” the title counts of Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu and all other SVOD competitors. 

Getting an exact handle on that title count, Vorel added, is tricky, since Amazon’s Prime Video UI makes it “extremely painful to use for browsing films.” 

Amazon would not confirm to us that its SVOD library is indeed shrinking. But it undoubtedly lost titles due to a  February policy change to its Amazon Video Direct platform, which lets independent filmmakers and other video creators share their work on Amazon Prime Video. The company announced that was “no longer accepting unsolicited licensing submissions via Prime Video Direct for nonfiction and short-form content.”

As this Recode story explains, the Amazon Prime Video library had come to be known as a kind of no holds barred place for wacky user-generated content, which by some estimates made up as much as two-thirds of the overall title count. 

In the misinformation age, was Amazon’s Video Direct policy change an attempt to limit the company’s liability? Again, Amazon wouldn’t say, but maybe some cleaning up was in order.

As Vorel noted, the combined effect of the user-generated content glut, and Amazon’s subpar search and recommendation software tools, mean that “award-winning quality selections [are] often discovered 100 pages or more into a veritable no-man’s land of zero-budget garbage.”

In any event, some legit documentary filmmakers appear to have been left out in the cold. 

Documentarian Robert Steven Williams said he mortgaged $40,000 of his own home to produce Gatsby in Connecticut: The Untold Story, under the assumption that the well-reviewed nonfiction film would recoup much of its costs via Amazon Prime Video revenue sharing. 

“On the day before we were taken down, full-page reviews of the film ran in the Chicago Tribune, The Orlando Sentinel and The Hartford Courant. All are publications with huge readership, a tremendous coup for Gatsby in Connecticut, but those articles directed readers to Amazon Prime. The next day, without warning or explanation, we were purged. My distributor couldn’t get anyone to respond to an email—forget about getting a person to answer a phone,” Williams blogged on the International Documentary Association (IDA) website. 

Amazon wouldn’t tell us just how many titles have been, er, purged from its library because of the Amazon Video Direct policy change. And again, Vorel said the seemingly intentional “brokenness” of the Amazon Prime Video user interface makes it hard to even hazard a guess. 

For example, just trying to search through the Prime Video sci-fi catalog is virtually impossible, he said. 

“It quickly becomes apparent that there is no obvious way to view that full list of sci-fi movies, suggesting that Amazon doesn’t want consumers to be able to easily find that kind of information—its user experience is built around you choosing one of the small handful of suggested films, or knowing in advance what you want to see and then specifically searching it out,” Vorel said. 

“This is what a trillion dollar company, owned by the richest man on Earth, considers to be an acceptable user interface?,” he asked.

Of course, Amazon didn’t become a giant with a $1.69 trillion market capitalization by not knowing how to efficiently monetize things like video libraries. And here’s where things get really tricky. When searching for titles in Amazon Prime Video, movies and shows in the ad-supported IMDb TV library, as well as those available under rental and sale transactional terms surface alongside those available for viewing ad-free at no extra charge beyond the $119-a-year/$12.99-a-month Amazon Prime membership. 

The Amazon rep we spoke to explained that contractual terms for titles are always in flux. Some movies and shows may have their SVOD terms lapse, for example, but they’re still available for transactional video on demand (TVOD). 

Sure, recent policy changes may have curtailed the amount of titles from smaller creators coming through Amazon Video Direct, but Amazon is still licensing--and buying outright--lots of content from big-name creators. Besides its $8.45 billion deal in May to buy MGM, Amazon just entered distribution deals with Universal Pictures and Sony for Norman Lear-produced TV series, for example. 

But here's a key question: Is Amazon increasingly these days licensing movies and shows for AVOD and TVOD, and less so for SVOD? The rep said she’d get back to us on this.

Amazon continues to expand access to its free ad-supported IMDb TV streaming service, announcing native integration into Comcast's Xfinity X1 and Flex video platforms. 

With the integration, the IMDb TV app is now controllable by the X1 and Flex voice remote, meaning you can launch the software simply by saying "IMDb TV." 

The Comcast announcement follows deployments of the IMDb TV app on iOS and Android mobile devices. 

Earlier deployment announcements this year have included Roku, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, LG Smart TVs (2018-2021 models), PlayStation 4 consoles as well as Chromecast with Google TV, Nvidia Shield and other Android TV devices.

Amazon's free ad-supported streaming service, IMDb TV, is coming to mobile devices, with the announcement of app support for iOS and Android tablets and smart phones. 

The IMDb TV app is supported by most connected TV platforms, save for Samsung smart TVs. 

Amazon has initiated an aggressive original programming strategy for IMDb TV, which includes a spinoff of its popular Amazon Prime Video originals series, Bosch, as well as a new reality court show built around Judge Judy star Judy Sheindlin. 

Amazon’s streaming services, the subscription Prime Video and the free IMDb TV, are adding classic series from producer Norman Lear in a licensing deal with Sony Pictures Television.

“Norman Lear is a national treasure and his impact on television and popular culture is immeasurable,” said Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios. “We are so honored to bring his classic television series to Prime Video and IMDb TV so new audiences and a new generation can laugh, enjoy and be inspired, like so many of us have been throughout the years.”

Financial terms were not disclosed.

Amazon Prime Video subscribers will be able to start streaming 227 and Diff’rent Strokes on July 15 as part of their membership. Titles including The Jeffersons, Sanford & Son and Sanford will launch on Prime Video later in 2021.

All in the Family, Good Times, Maude and One Day at a Time will come to IMDb TV on July. Amazon said this is the first time all episodes of Maude and all seasons of All in the Family will be available to stream.

“Life is a collaboration. Writing, directing and producing films and television is perhaps the most collaborative work of all. In 2018, our Act III Productions sat with the team at Sony Pictures Television and formed a partnership to not only produce new content, but to bring a new awareness to my former Embassy library,” said Lear. “That Sony found a home for that library with Prime Video/IMDb TV where new generations could find it, is the best present a man entering his 100th year can have.”

At the ripe age of 99, Lear continues to work. He has been executive producing and co-hosting Live in Front of a Studio Audience alongside Jimmy Kimmel. The show features top actors recreating episodes from Lear’s series life.

He’s also executive producer of two films now in theaters, I Carry You With Me and Rita Moreno: Just A Girl Who Decided to Go For It.

Amazon has signed its first exclusive domestic output deal with a major Hollywood studio, inking an agreement for a portion of “Pay 1” window rights to Universal Filmed Entertainment Group titles starting in 2022. 

The agreement follows a pocket-to-pocket arrangement touted by Universal last week, in which it agreed to deliver its movies to Comcast corporate sibling Peacock 120 days after they debut in theaters. Peacock will have exclusive domestic rights to those titles for four months. 

After that period, Amazon Prime Video will have exclusive domestic rights to Universal live-action titles, including upcoming releases Jurassic World: Dominion, The 355 and Ambulance, for 10 months. These live action titles will then return to Peacock for the last four months of their 18-month Pay 1 release window. 

Amazon Prime Video will also gain access to Universal library titles, which includes movies from the Jurassic Park, Bourne and Fast & Furious franchises. 

According to a joint statement, Prime Video will also gain SVOD rights to Universal’s animated slate—which includes Minions: The Rise of Grue and DreamWorks Animation’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish—through an “additional window,” although little clarity was provided as to when that window might begin and end. 

Currently, Netflix gets Universal animated titles in the 10 months in-between Peacock’s four-month bookend Pay 1 engagements. 

Separately, Amazon’s free, ad-supported streaming service, IMDb TV, acquired “network” window rights to Universal’s 2020-21 slate, which includes titles such as Dolittle, The Invisible Man, F9 (Fast & Furious 9) and Sing 2. IMDb TV also gets rights to an unspecified number of animated titles from the Universal library. 

The deal marks a distribution milestone for Amazon. It previously had non-exclusive domestic arrangements with studios including Paramount and MGM, which it just bought. And through Lionsgate's Epix premium channel, Amazon has previously enjoyed exclusive international distribution rights. But the Universal deal is by far its highest profile distribution arrangement yet, although financial terms haven’t been announced. 

Coupled with that recently announced MGM purchase, Amazon Prime Video now has exclusive TV rights to some of the most popular franchises in the movie business.

And it’s another blow to HBO, the incumbent holder of Universal’s Pay 1 window rights. 

The Amazon agreement with Universal follows Netflix’s poaching from HBO in April of first pay window rights to Sony Pictures Entertainment titles, also starting in 2022. 

“We know Prime members love movies, and this new deal with UFEG will deliver some of the best films available for our customers,” said Brad Beale, Prime Video VP of worldwide content licensing, in a statement. “This new slate of UFEG films, including exciting upcoming releases such as Jurassic World: Dominion, The 355, and Ambulance will continue to build upon Prime Video’s catalog and delight Prime members, all at no additional cost to their membership.”

Added Peter Levinsohn, vice chairman and chief distribution officer for UFEG: “Recognizing that all parties would benefit from a modernized windowing structure, this new agreement allows Prime Video and IMDb TV to benefit from UFEG’s vast library and diverse content like never before."

When Lauren Anderson was very young, she was fascinated by TV. “I thought that people lived literally inside of the television and my mother was always nervous that I was going to break the TV trying to step inside,” recalled Anderson, now co-head of content and programming for Amazon’s free, ad-supported service IMDb TV, where she oversees all development, production, licensing, research and strategy. “And now I do work inside of the television.”

Within that universe, Anderson is a smash hit because “she has an ability to think big and she loves what we do,” Christel Miller, senior creative executive at Amazon Studios, said. “She’s also an insanely hard worker.”

The TV landscape where Anderson now works is very different from the one she watched as a child in Ohio, when the idea of running programming for an ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) network could not even be fathomed. 

She started her programming career at a traditional broadcaster, NBC, after working in the player development group of the National Basketball Association’s Community and Player Programs Department, a job that followed a summer internship while she was at Columbia University.

Wonder Women Los Angeles: Shining Bright in the Hollywood Spotlight

“While I was at the NBA, I started getting really interested in what we were broadcasting out to the fans,” she said. She landed in the NBC Associates Program after explaining in interviews that sports and TV both involved entertainment and working with the most talented creators.

At NBC Entertainment, she rose to senior VP of primetime programming, working at the studio and network on shows like The Good Place, Parks and Recreation, The Office and The Carmichael Show.

“Even while I was at NBC, I was always looking to try something different, something special,” she said, referring to those shows. “One thing I noticed about myself is that I’m always interested in the next thing and where we’re headed. I was always talking about how engaged younger fans were, digital viewership and watching online. I said, ‘I want to go where the customers are.’ ”

That led her to Indigo Development and Entertainment Arts, the studio joint venture between NBCUniversal and Snapchat. Under her leadership as chief content officer, Indigo began creating scripted content like The Dead Girls Detective Agency and Kappa Crypto, the first scripted series from the company to attract a major ad sponsorship.

Where the customers were really going were to streaming giants like Amazon, which Anderson joined in 2019 as head of strategic content for Amazon Studios, shepherding series such as the Savage x Fenty Show for Prime Video.

In 2020, she moved within Amazon to the programming role at IMDb TV.

Eye Toward What’s Next

“I’m always looking for what’s the new business and the IMDb TV business model, positioned inside of Amazon, is exciting to me,” she said. “We are not behind a paywall and are available to everyone, so I still feel like I’m going to where the people are. We can be their first point of entry to lead to deeper engagement within the company. There’s a false belief that commercials are the enemy, but people really want to watch good caliber shows when it is convenient.”

The service is striving to provide premium original content for free. Under Anderson, IMDb tv has introduced original programming like the scripted series Alex Rider and the powerful docuseries Moment of Truth, which investigates whether racism and corruption in North Carolina led to the conviction of the wrong man in the high-profile murder of Michael Jordan’s father in the 1990s. Deals are in place for two Norman Lear projects, a new court show involving Judge Judy Sheindlin and for a spinoff of Amazon Prime Video’s hit series Bosch.

“We’re really just one year in with our originals and I’m really excited about our progress so far,” Anderson said. “Our early adopters are watching now, but I’d love it if a year from now these shows have a resurgence as the service and awareness grows.” 

A gavel’s a gavel, and a robe is a robe, so don’t look for Judy Sheindlin’s upcoming IMDb TV (now Amazon Freevee) courtroom reality series, Judy Justice, to be too different than Judge Judy, the CBS-syndicated “court strip” she produced and starred in for the last 25 years. 

“Look, I do what I do,” the 78-year-old Sheindlin said in a wide-ranging Hollywood Reporter interview, “So within the confines of me doing what I do, we’ll be changing some of the things around me. But I’m not becoming a ballet dancer.”

Sheindlin said she’ll start shooting new episodes of Judy Justice for Amazon’s ad-supported VOD platform, IMDb, starting this summer. The show will wrap in December, and then Amazon will figure out a premiere date, she said. 

Notably, Sheindlin explained to THR her reasons for bolting CBS: “The People’s Court, they’ve had several judges. The Tonight Show has had several hosts,” she said. “But I Love Lucy only had one Lucille Ball. So, almost 20 years ago, I told the company that I worked for this: “I want to be more of a partner. Don’t treat me as a paid employee. I could make this show without you — I created a deal where I could do that — but you can’t make it without me. I can take Judy Sheindlin anywhere else. And good luck with you if you can find somebody else. Otherwise, let’s share the gift that this program has brought to both of us.” I don’t think that there’s anything unreasonable about that.”

Keeping in character, the former Manhattan family court judge also confirmed that she didn’t cry while filming the final episode of Judge Judy.

“I didn’t feel all that emotional,” she said. “I wasn’t teary. I felt gratified that I had completed that part of my journey and done it respectably. It was just the end of the day, the end of the job. I cleaned the bathroom, and the bathroom is sparkling.”

Multichannel News is pleased to announce 15 Wonder Women of Los Angeles, who will be celebrated at a virtual event on Monday, June 7.

A diverse group of successful executives in a range of fields at companies involved with programming, streaming technology, advertising and consulting. This is MCN’s third L.A.-based extension of its Wonder Women program. Look for announcements (on mcnwonderwomen.com) coming soon about the 2021 New York Wonder Women, to be celebrated in September, and for a new Wonder Women program centered around San Francisco.

Wonder Women of Los Angeles on June 7 will kick off a packed month of Future events, continuing with the Summer TV Events slate of the TV Data+Measurement Summit on Wednesday, June 9, and TV+Sports Summit on Thursday, June 10, and closing with the Pride TV Summit on Wednesday, June 23.

“These 15 leaders in both traditional and emerging categories of the TV industry are true Wonder Women, whose stories we’re proud to share with our readers and guests at the event on June 7,” Bill Gannon, VP and global editor-in-chief of Multichannel News, Broadcasting+Cable and Next TV, said. “Their wit and wisdom will be a great beginning to our Summer TV Events season.”

Also read: Celebrating Women on Video's Cutting Edge 

In alphabetical order, with links to their bios, these are the 2021 Wonder Women of Los Angeles.

Lauren Anderson, Co-Head of Content and Programming, IMDb TV.

Andrea Clarke-Hall, Head of Global Business Development, Head of Global Business Development, Tubi.

Angela Courtin, Vice President of Brand Marketing, YouTube.

Jackie Donaldson, Vice President of Global Product Strategy, Disney Streaming.

Dee Harris-Lawrence, Showrunner, Executive Producer, David Makes Man, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network.

Jaya Kolhatkar, Executive Vice President, Data, Disney Direct-to-Consumer & International.

Amy Kuessner, Senior Vice President of Content Strategy and Global Partnership, Pluto TV.

Audrey Lee, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Starz.

Alison Levin, Vice President of Global Ad Revenue and Marketing Solutions, Roku.

Susan Levison, Senior Vice President and Head of WWE Studios, WWE.

Pooja Midha, Chief Growth Officer, Comcast Advertising.

Cathy Oh, Vice President and Global Head of Marketing and Analytics, Samsung Ads.

Duan Peng, Senior Vice President of Data & Artificial Intelligence, WarnerMedia.

Romina Rosado, Executive Vice President, Entertainment and Content Strategy, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises.

Michelle Wroan, Managing Partner, Los Angeles, KPMG LLP.

After only around 30 months in the streaming video market, Amazon’s IMDb TV appears to have hit its stride.

During Amazon’s NewFront presentation Monday, the tech giant said that IMDb TV viewership has increased by 138% year over year, and that 62% of IMDb TV viewers are age 18-49.  Additionally, IMDb TV viewers spend 5.5 hours per week on average on the free, ad-supported streaming service.

Launched in January 2019 as FreeDive, the Amazon-owned free-to-consumer streaming service was eventually rebranded under Amazon’s Internet Movie Database. Like most AVOD platforms at the time, IMDb TV was a place to watch a smorgasbord of licensed programming—an offering that has evolved over time to include premium offset TV repeats like Desperate Housewives and Mad Men, and movies including Shrek Forever After.

But in February 2020, the IMDb TV content team was moved under the Amazon Studios umbrella, with a mandate of producing high profile original programming. Lauren Anderson and Ryan Pirozzi were named content co-heads and put in charge of the service’s programming including creative development, production, licensing and strategy. Both execs have deep Amazon roots: Anderson was the former head of strategic content for Amazon Studios, while Pirozzi served as head of worldwide television and movie licensing for Prime Video before landing at IMDb TV.

Last year, the platform launched its first original series, Alex Rider. There were also two original docuseries, Top Class: The Life and Times of the Sierra Canyon Trailblazers, which chronicled the life and times of Lebron James’ son Bronny, and his star-studded basketball team at a ritzy suburban Los Angeles high school; and Moment of Truth, which re-examines the 1993 murder of Michael Jordan’s father. Also announced as a new courtroom-themed reality show from “Judge” Judy Sheindlin, a reboot of the aughts-era Dean Devlin TNT caper comedy-drama Leverage, and a spin-off of Amazon Prime Video’s gritty crime drama Bosch, with the title character turning in his badge to do random tasks for super lawyer Honey “Money” Chandler. 

Here’s what Anderson and Pirozzi told us last week:

NEXT TV: What is the difference between an IMDb TV originals and Amazon Prime Video originals?

Lauren Anderson: Being in the market as a streamer creating free premium original series is a differentiator. And it's not just about Prime. It's really about the landscape as a whole and the fact that we're inviting audiences to watch incredible shows for free.

Ryan Pirozzi: IMDb TV is disrupting the whole digital video space by providing premium original content for free from an award-winning studio. That's unique. We also talk a lot about our vision of the modern network, meaning broadly satisfying content that customers may have expected to find on broadcast television or basic cable, but have a hard time finding in the ubiquitous availability and all the convenience of streaming. We're trying to combine those two things and IMDb TV, and so far, it’s working.”

Next: IMDb TV ordered a spinoff of ‘Bosch’ after it was announced last year that the show would end with its seventh season on Prime Video this summer. The cast—Titus Welliver, Mimi Rogers, and Madison Lintz—are reprising their roles in the spinoff, but will the series look different on IMDb TV?

Pirozzi: “We are absolutely going to make it a different show. It truly is a spinoff. It's not season eight of the original series. Bosch is based on the Harry Bosch book series by Michael Connelly, and there's a narrative pivot in the character in Bosch’s life that we are using as an opportunity to spin the show off into something new that will hopefully delight the existing fan base, but also open the aperture and bring more fans to the series.”

Next: Why reboot Leverage—a TNT crime series that ended after five seasons in 2012 —into Leverage: Redemption?

Pirozzi: “It comes down to, ‘Is there a story left?’ Leverage was one of those cases working with Dean Devlin, who was able to bring back so much of the great cast of that show. We think there was good reason to bring it back at this moment.”

Next: How many originals will IMDb TV release during 2021?

Anderson: “Six to 10 more originals will be released throughout the remainder of the year. It’s about a steady drum beat of shows. We want to be a fan-favorite destination service. So much of that is about programming and really great, original series.”

Next: Is there a through line that connects IMDb TV programming original and licensed content?

Anderson: “It’s always about licensing and programming original series that we think are broad, escapist, and engaging. That’s really our focus. And so our original content expands that a little bit because we're able to do new things and we're able to work with creators and storytellers on their ideas from concept to execution. But then the sorts of shows that we look to license are really focused on that as well. We want audiences to come to the service and just be able to dive in. To have a really good time and escape for an hour or 10, ideally and hear and see great stories from incredible storytellers on the scripted side or the unscripted side.”

Next: During the Newfront on Monday ,Amazon reported that 62% of IMDb TV viewers are 18 to 49. Is that the platform’s target audience?

Pirozzi: It’s an important target audience for us absolutely and to our advertising partners. But we are looking to delight as large of a group of viewers as we can. There are Prime members who want more selection and are willing to watch ads to get it, but we are also delighting people and opening the aperture beyond the Prime base into customers that aren’t behind that paywall for one reason or another. So, our team has built an inclusive programming slate for the group we have and the group we are trying to attract. Younger and more diverse audiences are key. That's why you will see this range of content across our licensed and original slate, which is designed to attract a large audience. So, there's not a specific demo. It's really about (attracting) a very large and broad audience.”

Next: The platform will offer plenty of new original nonfiction content in the upcoming months. There is docuseries about country music singer and songwriter Luke Bryan titled ‘Luke Bryan: My Dirt Road Diary.’ There’s also ‘Bug Out,’ a true-crime documentary series about the underworld of exotic bug smugglers and the federal agents who chase them. And then there is the ‘The Untitled Jeff Lewis Project’ about the interior designer’s work and personal life. They all sound very different. Is there a criteria each project must meet to be IMDb TV content?

Anderson: “Great stories and great storytellers. Fun and buoyant content. That doesn’t mean that every single documentary will be fun and buoyant, but certainly that is a piece of what we're doing now. But to be very clear, we also have a part of our strategy that's focused on aspects of stories people haven't heard or seen before. That content includes Moment of Truth and Bug Out.

Next: Will IMDb TV ever feature news and sports?

Pirozzi: It’s certainly something we're looking at. But for Lauren and me, news and sports is not in the immediate horizon, even though our team talks about it all the time. And certainly, basically anything that customers are interested in is on the table. But in the near term, you'll primarily find scripted and unscripted fare on IMDb TV.

Next: Can you quantify the IMDb TV audience?

Pirozzi: We don't release our monthly active users or our total users data. I can say that we are exceeding our goals thus far. I think what's safe to say is that customers are responding.

Next: How do you keep building awareness for the platform?

Anderson: “Our distribution is a big part of it. So, the fact that audiences and customers can find us in more and more places is a huge part of that. Our originals are a big piece too. Being a free service, that's creating, making and distributing premium original series, we hope that that's a big part of what's going to draw attention and engagement. Our licensed content is also another piece of that. We pride ourselves on being a curated service, but a service that has a diverse array of content. So maybe people come in the door through the originals, but then they stay for Lost and Mad Men and Ugly Betty. That’s the way we are framing it and hopefully that really resonates with customers.”

Amazon’s IMDb TV ad-supported streaming service said that it has a group of original scripted projects in development.

The announcement came before Amazon’s presentation at the NewFronts, where digital video companies make their pitches to media buyers. Amazon hasn’t presented at the NewFront’s before.

Also Read: NewFront Speakers See Advertisers Changing Channels from Traditional TV

Free ad-supported streaming channels like IMDb have been growing fast, but are starting to see a need to develop and pay for original programming to attract and hold viewers.

Also Read: NFL Quick Kick: ‘Thursday Night Football’ to Amazon in 2022

A hour-hour drama from Dick Wolf, the prolific Law & Order producer, has been ordered by IMDb TV.

On Call follows a pair of police officers on patrol in Long Beach, Calif. Each episode tracks the partners--a rookie and a veteran--receiving a radio call and arriving on the scene of an incident.

The show is produced by by Universal Television and Wolf Entertainment and ATTN.

Other new IMDb TV projects include:

Blessed and Highly Favored, about a woman who returns to Dallas as a rookie pastor to keep her family’s church alive under the critical eye of her predecessor, who is also her father. Writer-creators Chris Marcil and Sam Johnson are the showrunners and executive producers. Emmy Award-winner Chris Godsick, Peri Gilpin, 3 Arts and Industry Entertainment also serve as executive producers.

Greek Candy is a single-camera comedy series inspired by the 100 year old chocolate factory Melina Kanakaredes and her family run in Akron. From Sony Pictures Television, Kanakaredes stars, executive produces and co-writes the series with Marc Firek. Also executive producing are Josh Berman and Jennifer Robinson in association with Osprey. 

Primo, from Shea Serrano and Michael Schur, is a compelling and highly entertaining coming-of-age story about a Mexican-American teenager balancing cultural norms, college aspirations, societal expectations and a big family. Based on his life, Serrano is the writer and an executive producer. Schur and David Miner also serve as executive producers. Primo is a Fremulon and 3 Arts production in association with Universal TV, a division of Universal Studio Group. 

The Fed is a drama set at the Federal Reserve featuring a group of young financial geniuses and their personal lives, which may derail their careers. Produced by Warner Bros. Television, The Fed is executive produced and written by Nkechi Okoro Carroll, who worked for the Federal Reserve prior to her TV career. Adesuwa McCalla, who has a first-look deal with Amazon Studios, will also serve as executive producer.

The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh, PA. is from Sony Pictures Television and  follows an Indian family and the tumultuous yet humorous events since they arrived in Pittsburgh two years ago. The series is written by Vijal Patel and inspired by his personal experiences, and directed by Michael Showalter. Patel and Showalter alongside Sara Gilbert, Tom Werner, Mandy Summers and Jordana Mollick serve as executive producers.

 The streamer has also greenlit High School, a new original series based on the book by recording artists Tegan and Sara. The scripted show follows the twin as they write their first song and have their first loves.

Tegan and Sara Quin and Clea DuVall will serve as executive producers alongside Plan B Entertainment. DuVall will also write and direct multiple episodes, including the pilot. Amazon Studios and Emmy and Plan B Entertainment produce the show.

“We are incredibly excited to be working with Lauren, Ryan, and the fantastic IMDb TV team to bring High School to life and apologize in advance to our mother for forcing her to relive this period of time with us again,” said executive producers Tegan and Sara Quin.  “We’ve made casting suggestions on her behalf to the incomparable Clea DuVall and our wonderful partners at Plan B.”

High School is part of an overall deal for television between Amazon Studios and Plan B Entertainment. 

Amazon OTT said it now reaches more than 120 million monthly viewers, up from 20 million viewers in January 2020.

IMDb TV’s viewership has grown 138% since a year ago. Now, 62% of IMDb TV viewers are age 18-49 and IMDb TV viewers spend 5.5 hours per week on average on the free streaming service.

Amazon OTT ads show up alongside content across IMDb TV, Twitch, live sports like Thursday Night Football, 3P network and broadcaster apps, and Amazon’s News app.

IMDb TV will launch its mobile app on Android and iOS devices.this summer, expanding its distribution. 

 IMDb TV has greenlit an order for Season 2 of the docuseries Top Class: the Life and Time of the Sierra Canyon Trailblazers. 

The show, from Uninterrupted, will pick up where Season 1 ended, with COVID-19 bringing their season to a halt just before the high school basketball team is supposed to play in the state championship game. The Trailblazers feature a roster of high-profile players including BJ Boston, Amari Bailey, Bronny James, Shy Odom, Zaire Wade and Ziaire Williams.

The show is executive produced by Bronny's dad LeBron James and Maverick Carter.

“Top Class captured the devotion, resilience, passion, and raw emotion experienced by the players and coaches during last year’s monumental season,” said  Lauren  Anderson  and  Ryan  Pirozzi, co-heads  of content and programming, IMDb TV. “We are thrilled to continue our partnership with Uninterrupted and deliver fans the next chapter of the awe-inspiring Sierra Canyon Trailblazers story."

IMBb TV said its reboot of Leverage, which appeared on TNT from 2008 to 2012, will have its debut on July 9.  Leverage: Redemption will stream eight new episodes this summer followed by an additional eight episodes in the fall.

IMDb TV has queued up yet another new original series, this one from Gregory Thomas Garcia, the mastermind behind popular lovable-loser-themed network comedies including My Name Is Earl and Raising Hope. 

Produced by Amazon Studios, Sprung will star veteran TV actor Garrett Dillahunt, who played Raising Hope’s befuddled patriarch, as an ex con determined to set his life on the right back and redeem his past. 

In Sprung, Dilahunt emerges from prison after a two-decade stint. He moves in with old cellmate Rooster (Philip Garcia), and the pair decide to “start righting some of society’s wrongs” as they figure out how to move forward in a pandemic world. Illeana Douglas plays Rooster’s mom. 

It’s the latest high-profile original show from Amazon’s free-to-consumer “FAST” platform, coming after Amazon Studios recently announced that the seven-season-old Amazon Prime Video crime drama Bosch will soon spin off into brand-new IMDb TV drama. The untitled spinoff will feature star Titus Welliver hardboiled detective character, Harry Bosch, living a post-LAPD Homicide career, doing random tasks for super lawyer Honey Chandler. 

IMDb TV will also soon be home to a new court show starring Judy Sheindlin, star of the long running syndication hit Judge Judy. 

Sprung is executive produced by Garcia, Dillahunt, Michael Rotenberg and Jonathan Berry in association with 3 Arts. Tim Stack, Michael Pennie and Bobby Bowman are consulting producers and Gina Gari is co-producer. Garcia will also direct the series’ pilot episode.

“The support and creative partnership with the folks at IMDb TV has been amazing and working with Garret Dillahunt again is an absolute treat,” Garcia said, in a statement. “With any luck we’ll create something entertaining that gives the audience a few laughs and makes their day a little brighter.” 

Amazon’s biggest and best-known video-streaming unit is Amazon Prime Video, which is roughly as old as the streaming version of Netflix. Amazon Prime Video actually launched back in 2006 as Amazon Unbox. Since then, Amazon Prime has undergone a string of makeovers worthy of a Hollywood starlet, including multiple name changes, technological shifts, and the 2011 acquisition of Love Film, a British service similar to Netflix. 

And, like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video is now available in roughly 200 countries, with the main exceptions being mainland China, North Korea, Iran and Syria. 

Also Read: Amazon Infiltrates Fire TV into Cable TV Market with NCTC Deal

Amazon Prime, a program that involves free shipping on select goods, has an estimated 126 million members, who also get access to Amazon Prime Video as part of their $119/year fee, though third-party research suggests only about half of those customers take advantage. Amazon Prime Video is also available a la carte, at $8.99 per month, or only 93 cents less than the pro-rated cost of the much broader Prime subscription. 

Amazon spends an estimated $6 billion a year in programming, largely through Amazon Studios, presided over by former NBC entertainment chief Jennifer Salke for the past two years. 

The studios have been productive under Salke, particularly in comedy, where The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Fleabag took turns the past two years winning the Emmy for Best Comedy Series, among many other awards.

Amazon also has invested heavily, both in production and marketing, in other originals, most notably for a spinoff series based on Lord of the Rings. For those rights, secured amid peak interest in HBO’s Game of Thrones, Amazon paid $250 million, and is spending a similar amount to produce the initial series episodes. 

Amazon Prime Video’s newest big bet is Hunters, a revisionist historical take on Nazi hunters in the United States in the 1970s. It stars Al Pacino and Logan Lerman, and has been heavily promoted during the 2020 Oscars telecast and many other places. Other recent high-profile Amazon Prime Video programs include anthology show Modern Love, inspired by the New York Times column; Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan featuring  John Krasinski; and British sci-fi adaptation The Feed, featuring David Thewlis. There’s also plenty of licensed content to fill out around the originals. 

The Sun Never Sets

But Amazon’s streaming-media reach hardly stops with Amazon Prime Video. 

Amazon Channels is an Amazon Prime Video add-on, giving customers easy subscription access to still more TV, from roughly 150 providers, including such traditional pay-TV powers as HBO,  Showtime, and Starz; basic-cable spinoffs such as BET+, Lifetime Movie Club, Noggin, and Hallmark; newer streamers such as CBS All Access, BritBox, and CuriosityStream; and specialty channels such as Upfaith & Family, and Yoga Anytime Channel. 

Amazon Channels has been a lucrative outlet, for both the networks and Amazon itself. In late 2018, BMO Capital Markets estimated that the Channels unit generated $1.7 billion that year, as much as 30 percent going to Amazon. More importantly, Amazon Channels was generating anywhere from 25% to 40% of the subscribers watching those participating networks, BMO estimated.    

But not everyone wants to build their own replacement cable bundle. For the audience segment that prefers their video content free and don’t mind ads, in early 2019, Amazon launched AVOD service Freedive, with content licensed from Warner Bros., Sony, and MGM, interspersed with ads. Less than six months later, Freedive rebranded to IMDb TV, which competes most closely with the Roku Channel and reinforces another big Amazon brand. 

Also Read: The Five Spot: Q&A with Mark Eamer, VP of IMDb TV

Amazon still has its transactional side, too, selling traditional DVDs, Blu-Ray discs and CDs for the antediluvian audiences who still like old-fashioned packaged media. Its e-commerce operations are also a major Electronic Sell-Through and rental outlet.

It’s also worth noting that Amazon’s online-media offerings extend well beyond video. 

There’s Twitch, the live streaming platform focused on live multiplayer videogaming, that Amazon purchased in 2014. Twitch’s technological knowhow might come in handy as Amazon gets into things like live sports broadcast licensing. In June, Amazon started staffing up its software engineering and product management ranks to begin offering live, linear streaming. 

The Amazon Prime empire also includes IMDb, the vast reference database of film, TV shows, and other media content.  Amazon Music provides subscription music streams on par with Spotify and Apple. Amazon Prime members get a subset of that music for free. And the company owns audible.com, the giant purveyor of audiobooks and premium podcasts.

These disparate Amazon Prime offerings don’t seem to fit together particularly well. In part, as one former Amazon executive told me recently, the company frequently experiments with formats and approaches in new sectors.

“They tend to do a lot of experiments and learn from them,” the executive said. “Even if they lose money, it’s okay. They then grow from the knowledge.”

Amazon Prime has already killed off some experiments, like Anime Strike, an anime-focused stand-alone network on Amazon Channels that required its own separate subscription. 

Anime Strike launched in 2017 and lasted barely a year before shutting down, its content now available partly on Prime Video and partly on indie anime service HIDIVE.

But one part of the Amazon Prime empire does knit together all its disparate media experiments: its burgeoning hardware offerings. They include Fire TV tablets, connected TV interfaces, streaming devices, and a proliferating universe of first- and third-party devices built around the Alexa digital assistant. 

With more than 40 million active users worldwide, Amazon Fire TV is the No. 1 OTT device ecosystem globally. It ranks only behind Roku in the U.S. 

To borrow a well-used phrase from another famous brand, the range of Amazon media offerings allows customers to have it their way, on any of hundreds of devices and through just about every business model out there. Amazon Prime’s vast reach and resources allow it to be everywhere, and to try everything., to see what works  for consumers. 

As with some other massive players in the online space (Apple, Disney, increasingly Comcast), Amazon Prime’s media offerings are a way to make money, sure, but more importantly, they’re a way to keep customers coming back for everything else the company has to offer. Don’t call their media ventures a loss leader; call them a profit pusher. 

Amazon has further fleshed out distribution for its AVOD platform, IMDb TV, announcing app support for newer model LG smart TVs, PlayStation 4 video game consoles, and Nvidia Shield and TiVo Stream 4K OTT gadgets, two devices powered by Google’s Android TV OS.

Two weeks ago, Amazon announced IMDb TV app support for Google’s new Chromecast with Google TV dongle. And several weeks before that, it touted a native IMDb TV app for Roku. Previously, users of Roku and other device platforms had to go through the Amazon Prime Video app to connect with IMDb TV. 

In addition to its home base, the Amazon Fire TV platform, IMDb TV is also supported by Xbox One and the newer Xbox Series X/S consoles, as well as Sony’s Android TV-based smart TVs. 

Amazon, which recently revealed that it has 55 monthly active users across its ad-supported streaming channels, is investing aggressively in IMDb TV. Last week, it announced that the platform will be the home of the untiled Bosch spinoff series--the original Bosch is wrapping up a venerable run on the Amazon Prime Video subscription platform. 

In addition to the Bosch spinoff, IMDb is launching a reboot of the TNT Timothy Hutton caper dramedy Leverage, as well as a new reality court-themed show build around Judge Judy principal Judy Sheindlin. 

Continuing a thaw among the Silicon Valley giants in regard to over-the-top video distribution, Amazon’s IMDb TV streaming service is now supported by Chromecast with Google TV, as well as smart TVs running the new Google TV OS.

Support for other devices built on Google’s Android TV platform will arrive “in the coming weeks,” Amazon said in a Feb. 24 statement.

The news came just one week after Apple said its Apple TV app was supported by the Google TV OS.

As for Amazon’s free-to-consumer, ad-supported IMDb TV service, it already had intrinsic distribution on Amazon's Fire TV device ecosystem, as well as Roku and Microsoft Xbox gadgets. 

Amazon hasn't released an active user metric for IMDb TV specifically, but it said recently that it has 55 million monthly active users across its ad-supported channels. 

Amazon has been investing in its AVOD platform to the level of original shows. Notably, on Feb. 26 the service debuted Top Class: The Life and Times of the Sierra Canyon Trailblazers, a six-part docuseries focused on the high school basketball team of LeBron James’s son, Bronny. 

Google TV is the successor to Android TV, overlaying advanced search and recommendation features. So far, several smart TV makers, including Sony, have signaled their intention to integrate the new OS into their 2021 TV set shipments. But the broader field of Android TV devices will take several years to switch over to Google TV.

Android TV and its successor remain niche factors in the overall connected TV market. For example, in a recent Conviva survey of what devices U.S. consumers used to stream the Super Bowl earlier this month, only 4% used Android TV/Google TV, with 1% using Google's legacy Chromecast OTT device.  

Tough-guy detective Harry Bosch is going AVOD.

As the seventh and final season of the Amazon Studios-produced Bosch gets ready to unfurl on subscription service Amazon Prime Video later this spring, Amazon announced Wednesday that a spinoff series, recasting star Titus Welliver as Harry Bosch, will stream on the ad-supported, free-to-consumer IMDb TV service this summer. No word yet on a show title or episode count.

The spinoff will feature Bosch embarking on a “new chapter” in his career, working for a one-time sworn enemy, attorney Honey “Money” Chandler (actor Mimi Rogers). 

Madison Lintz also reprises her role as Maddie Bosch. 

“To say I am ecstatic is an understatement!,” said Welliver, who also serves as executive producer, in a statement that included numerous exclamation points. “To be given the opportunity to tell more Harry Bosch stories is a tremendous gift. The process of shooting season 7 with the shadow of it being our final loomed heavily, so when the idea was presented to continue with the possibility of a spinoff, without hesitation I said, ‘let’s go.’ To all of our Bosch fans, thank for your incredible support for all these years and I can promise you the ride will only get better!”

Amazon has queued up a number of significant original-series announcements for IMDb TV, including a new court show built around syndication star “Judge” Judy Sheindlin, as well as a currently available six-part documentary focused on the Sierra Canyon High School basketball team, which features LeBron James’s son Bronny, along with the offspring of other current and former NBA players. 

The Emmy-winning Bosch, however, has been one of the bigger original titles for the flagship Amazon Prime Video subscription platform for several years. 

Produced by Fabel Entertainment, the Bosch spinoff for IMDb TV is executive produced by Michael Connelly, Eric Overmyer, Tom Bernardo, Henrik Bastin, Pieter Jan Brugge, Welliver and Zetna Fuentes. Fuentes will also direct the spinoff pilot. 

“IMDb TV is the perfect home to extend the longstanding Amazon Studios relationship with the immensely talented Michael Connelly, Eric Overmyer, Tom Bernardo, Henrik Bastin, Pieter Jan Brugge, Titus Welliver, Mimi Rogers and Madison Lintz,” said Lauren Anderson and Ryan Pirozzi, co-heads of content and programming for IMDb TV. “Bosch has entertained fans season after season through vibrant storytelling and distinctive characters, and we are thrilled to evolve Bosch and ‘Money’ Chandler’s adventures through a new, ambitious IMDb TV Original and the first series spinoff for Amazon Studios.”

Amazon has announced the addition of IMDb TV and Xumo to the Amazon Fire TV live channel guide, giving Fire TV users access to more than 400 live-streamed channels, half of them free.

Amazon also added the Amazon news app to its live-streamed lineup, with the Plex app “coming soon." Channels and content from these apps will now appear on the “Live” tab within the Fire TV OS, as well as in “On Now” rows, and the Universal Channel Guide for customers that have downloaded the app.

Amazon Fire TV’s live-streamed channel guide now features content from nearly 20 programming providers, including subscription sources like YouTube TV, Sling TV, Philo and Amazon Prime Video, but also free ad-supported outlets like Tubi and Pluto TV. 

Voice commands via Amazon Alexa technology have also been added to the Fire TV interface so that users can surface live shows by speaking commands such as, “Alexa, play Good Morning America” or “Alexa, play the Seahawks game.”

Live TV programs will now appear in the “App Peek” feature of the recently upgraded Fire TV user interface. For example, if a user hovers over Pluto TV in the main navigation, live TV options will surface, and they can quickly navigate to the game or news program. App Peeks are currently available on Fire TV Stick (third generation and above) and Fire TV Stick Lite. Support for additional Fire TV devices is coming this later in March, Amazon said. 

“We’ve always taken a content-forward approach when designing Fire TV,” said Sandeep Gupta, VP & GM of Amazon Fire TV, in a statement. “When you turn on your TV, you’re going to see shows, movies, and sports—not just rows of apps. This philosophy extends to our approach to live content. We’re continuing to invest heavily in Live TV and so are our content partners. We’re expanding that today with the addition of new integrations, Alexa capabilities, and enhanced content discovery mechanisms.”

Amazon Fire TV now touts 50 million active users. And it’s not alone in developing mechanisms to organize, surface and encourage use of live TV channels. Roku has aggressively invested in its Live TV Channel Guide for more than a year. 

Continuing a thaw among the Silicon Valley giants in regard to OTT distribution, Amazon announced Wednesday that its IMDb TV streaming service is now supported by Chromecast with Google TV, as well as smart TVs running the new Google TV OS.

Support for other devices built on Google’s Android TV platform will arrive “in the coming weeks,” Amazon said.

The announcement was made just a week after Apple announced that its Apple TV app is now supported by the Google TV OS.

As for Amazon's free-to-consumer, ad-supported IMDb TV service, it already had intrinsic distribution on Amazon's Fire TV device ecosystem, as well as Roku and Microsoft Xbox gadgets. 

Amazon hasn't released an active user metric for IMDb TV specifically, but it said earlier this month that its has 55 million monthly active users across its ad-supported channels. 

Amazon has been investing in its AVOD platform to the level of original shows. Notably, on Friday, the service will debut Top Class: The Life and Times of the Sierra Canyon Trailblazers, a six-part docu-series focused on LeBron James' son Bronny's high-school basketball team. 

As for Google TV, it's the successor to Android TV, overlaying advanced search and recommendation features. So far, several smart TV makers, including Sony, have signaled their intention to integrate the new OS into their 2021 TV set shipments. But the broader field of Android TV devices will take several years to switch over to Google TV.

Android TV and its successor remain niche factors in the overall connected TV market. For example, in a recent Conviva survey of what devices U.S. consumers used to stream the Super Bowl earlier this month, only 4% used Android TV/Google TV, with 1% using Google's legacy Chromecast OTT device. 

Amazon’s IMDb TV app is now available as a standalone app on Roku.

The IMDb TV AVOD service was previously available on the No. 1 connected TV device platform, buried inside the confines of the vast Amazon Prime Video app as a free channel.

The distinction adds more profile to Amazon’s fast-expanding free-to-consumer IMDb TV service, which combines an ad-supported smorgasbord of library theatrical titles, along with popular TV series and a burgeoning lineup of original shows. 

The standalone Roku app offers “easier accessibility for customers,” an Amazon rep said. 

Also Read: Amazon’s IMDb TV Green-lights Another Original: Documentary on Bronny James' Ritzy High School

In addition to commissioning a reboot of the TNT caper dramedy Leverage, as well as streaming an adaptation of novelist Anthony Horowitz' teen spy thriller, Alex Rider, IMDb TV will soon be home to one of daytime syndication’s biggest ratings draws, Judy Sheindlin (aka “Judge Judy”), as well as a flurry of high-profile documentaries.

Meanwhile, its stable of off-network TV reruns now includes Chicago Fire, Schitt’s Creek and Mad Men. 

Also Read: IMDb TV: Everything You Need to Know About the Fast-Growing Free, Ad-Supported Side of Amazon’s Streaming Business

IMDb TV says it has "half" the ads typically shown on linear TV. 

“We are thrilled to provide customers a seamless and easy way to view our broadly-appealing content with the distribution of our IMDb TV app onto millions of Roku devices,” said Mark Eamer, VP of IMDb TV, OTT and grand advertising, making perhaps the most press release-ish statement ever made in the history of press releases. “We look forward to delivering our catalog of hit movies, acclaimed series, nostalgic TV and inventive IMDb TV Originals to Roku’s engaged customers.”

IMDb TV is now available as a standalone app on both Roku and Amazon Fire TV. It’s available on other device platforms, like Apple TV, Android TV/Google TV, Xbox and PlayStation via the Amazon Prime Video app. The service is supported on iOS and Android through the broader IMDb mobile app.

Amazon’s free-to-stream IMDb TV platform has announced the green-lighting of its latest original show, a six-part documentary about Southern California's star-studded Sierra Canyon High School basketball team, executive produced by one of the players’ celebrity dads, LeBron James, and his production partner, Maverick Carter. 

Top Class: The Life and Times of the Sierra Canyon Trailblazers will chronicle the team’s quest in 2019-20--against all odds!--to win a third consecutive California state high school basketball championship, as well as the players’ trials and tribulations in what Amazon bills as “one of the most academically elite high schools in the country.”

Also Read: IMDb TV: Everything You Need to Know About the Fast-Growing Free, Ad-Supported Side of Amazon’s Streaming Business

That Sierra Canyon team not only included James’ son, Bronny, but also Zaire Wade, son of another future NBA Hall of Famer, Dwyane Wade. Also featured was Shy Odom, son of two-time NBA champion and former L.A. Lakers Sixth Man of the Year Lamar Odom. And if that team wasn't stacked enough, it also featured: Zaire Williams, who went on to play at Stanford; and BJ Boston, currently playing for the University of Kentucky. 

Yeah, youth and prep sports can be just a little overwrought in Los Angeles and the tony surrounding suburban enclaves that house retired pro sports legends.

The series arrives under the “UNINTERRUPTED” production banner, which exists under James and Carter’s SpringHill Company shingle.  

Also Read: MDb TV Expands Amazon Studios Originals Ties, Adds Two Docu-series

“Like millions of fans around the world, we were riveted by the Trailblazers’ dynamic and exceptional journey last season,” said Lauren Anderson, co-head of content and programming for IMDb TV, in a statement. Telling a story beyond sports and highlighting how the team’s intelligence and competitive streak seamlessly transfer to the classroom, the docu-series captures the devotion, resilience, and raw emotion experienced by the players, coaches, and families through every setback and victory—both on and off the court.”

In November, IMDb TV premiered the spy thriller Alex Rider, an original series based on Anthony Horowitz’s best-selling book franchise. Other previously announced originals coming to IMDb TV include the true-crime docu-series Moment of Truth; a reimagining of the crime drama Leverage; the second season of Alex Rider; and the Untitled Judge Judy Sheindlin Project, the streaming debut for no-nonsense, expeditious Judge Sheindlin and her signature adjudication style.

Amazon’s IMDb TV continues to be out front of the AVOD competition in terms of original shows, setting up two more series from sibling Amazon Studios.

Premiering on the free-to-consumer IMDb TV in early 2021, documentary series Moment of Truth will examine the 1993 murder of basketball legend Michael Jordan’s father, James Jordan, unearthing new details of a crime that shocked America. 

IMDb is also developing untiled series from filmmaker dream hampton (creator of Netflix’s acclaimed documentary Surviving R. Kelly). Her latest untitled docu-series will look at the cultural impact of one of TV’s most prolific programming genres, crime procedurals. 

In November, IMDb TV debuted Amazon Studios’ series adaptation of writer Anthony Horowitz spy-thriller novel series, Alex Rider. 

“As we expand our slate of premium original programming for IMDb TV, we were captivated by these distinct projects, each designed to uniquely engage audiences through high-quality, thought-provoking and previously untold stories,” said Lauren Anderson and Ryan Pirozzi, co-heads of content and programming for IMDb TV, apparently speaking the same words and sentences, in simultaneous harmony, for a joint statement. “dream hampton is a visionary who illuminates the role crime fiction has played in our day-to-day lives and the way real-life cases are prosecuted. In Moment of Truth, Matthew and Clay start with a crime that shocked the nation, unfolding the mysteries of the past while revealing the all-too-relevant present-day implications.”

Amazon’s streaming service IMDb TV said it has renewed the spy series Alex Rider for a second season, three days before season one has its premiere in the U.S.

Season two will be based on Eagle Strike, the fourth novel by Anthony Horowitz in the Alex Rider franchise.

The series, produced by Eleventh Hour Films and Sony Pictures Television, premiered on Amazon Prime Video in the U.K., Australian and Germany this summer.

Alex Rider will stream exclusively in the U.S. on IMDb TV and on Prime Video in Australia, Canada, Italy, Germany, Latin American, New Zealand and the U.K.

“I couldn’t be happier with the response to season one of Alex Rider and I’m thrilled that the adventure is going to continue with Eagle Strike, one of my favorite stories,” said Horowitz, also an executive producer of the series.

Otto Farrant stars as Alex Rider, a London teen who has been unknowingly trained since childhood to be a spy.

“As U.S. audiences discover the escapist adventure that is Alex Rider season one, there is no better time to confirm the thrilling story will absolutely continue with a second season,” said Lauren Anderson and Ryan Pirozzi, co-heads of content and programming for IMDb TV. “We are proud that our first original series since aligning under Amazon Studios features this special character, enviable cast and the dynamic material originated by Anthony and brought to a streaming audience by Guy, Sony and the team at Eleventh Hour.”

In addition to Horowitz, Jill Green, Eve Gutierrez, and series writer Guy Burt serve as executive producers.

“We’re thrilled that audiences in over 100 global territories connected with Alex Rider so enthusiastically since it launched on Amazon Prime Video in the UK this summer,” said Wayne Garvie, president, international production at Sony Pictures Television. “Escapism and entertainment have never been more important than they are this year, and I know that what Anthony and the team at Eleventh Hour have planned for Eagle Strike will keep everyone on the edge of their seats.”

Judy Sheindlin, star of one of the most successful daytime shows in broadcast syndication history, is moving her judgy act to Amazon’s IMDb TV (now Amazon Freevee).

Amazon’s free-to-consumer, ad-supported streaming service will launch what it’s calling the Untitled Judge Judy Sheindlin Project at an as-yet unannounced date. 

“The Untitled Judge Judy Sheindlin Project will feature no-nonsense, expeditious Judge Sheindlin’s signature adjudication style with a new array of cases, litigants and judgments,” Amazon said.

Also Read: ‘Judge Judy’ to Wrap After 25 Years. What’s Next?

Sheindlin, 78, a former New York judge, has presided over Judge Judy since 1996, leading one of daytime syndications most popular half-hour "strips." ViacomCBS syndication arm CBS Domestic Television distributes the iconic Judge Judy. 

It was widely reported in March that, after a falling-out with the high-level executive management at ViacomCBS put in place after the departure of Les Moonves in 2018, Sheindlin decided to move her show to another platform. 

Judge Judy is set to end production at the end of the 2020-21 television season. Amazon reps have not announced when the new show will premiere on IMDb TV. Also not announced: whether co-star bailiff Petri Hawkins-Byrd, or any of the production team at Judge Judy production companies Paramount Domestic TV and Big Ticket TV, will join the new project. 

Amazon’s press release quotes Scott Koondel, CEO of Sox Entertainment, Inc., saying “I'm thrilled to help with the transition of this entertainment phenom from over-the-air to over-the-top television.”

Koondel is a 25-plus-year CBS veteran, an Amazon rep said, who worked closely with Sheindlin over the years and has since formed Sox Entertainment. Variety reported earlier that Sheindlin partnered with Koondel to handle the sale of the new show. 

The Amazon rep said details about the production will be announced at a later date. 

“I’m over the moon to be in business with Amazon Studios and continuing this incredible journey with them on a new platform is so exciting,” Sheindlin said in a statement. “I used to yell at my husband, Jerry, for all the packages he had ordered from Amazon every day. I have enough mouthwash in the cabinets to keep the entire planet’s breath fresh until the next millennium. The doorbell never stops ringing. The dogs don’t even bark at the delivery people anymore. After I signed this deal, I apologized to Jerry. Who would have thought that the Sheindlin’s and Amazon would be mishpachah?” 

Added Lauren Anderson and Ryan Pirozzi, co-heads of content and programming for IMDb TV: “Judge Judy Sheindlin is a TV icon and visionary who has entertained millions of fans for decades. As we build the IMDb TV slate of high-quality, ambitious Amazon Studios Originals, we are delighted to deliver customers a court program from the legendary Judge Sheindlin who, without a doubt, is the very best in the business.”

IMDb is the first AVOD platform to dive aggressively into original programming. The platform is set to debut Alex Rider, a youth spy thriller series based on writer Anthony Horowitz’s best-selling book franchise, on Nov. 13.

Amazon’s IMDb TV has expanded its partnership with AMC Networks to launch five live-linear channels, including one themed around long-running zombie apocalypse drama “The Walking Dead.”

Like other ad-supported streaming platforms, IMDb TV is building out its live-linear program guide. It now has more than 20 channels that are formatted in a traditional program guide, with shows running at set scheduled times. 

IMDb TV, which over the summer became the temporary U.S. streaming home to AMC classic drama Mad Men, has already launched The Walking Dead Universe Experience channel, a collection of select episodes from not only the long-running The Walking Dead flagship series, but also spinoffs Fear the Walking Dead, Ride with Norman Reedus and Friday Night in with the Morgans. 

IMDb TV has also launched channels themed around AMC shows Turn: Washington’s Spies; Halt and Catch Fire; Rectify;  Making of the Mob; and Into the Badlands.

Meanwhile, said to be “coming soon” are channels themed around other AMC Networks properties: Rush by AMC, a collection of action thriller movies; IFC Film Picks, collection of acclaimed film titles; Slightly Off by IFC,  which will be curated comedy selections; and Absolute Reality by WE tv, which features shows like Bridezillas, Kendra on Top, Joan & Melissa and Platinum Weddings. 

Amazon’s IMDb TV ad supported streaming service has secured the exclusive U.S. rights to the kid spy series Alex Rider.

The series will be available on IMDB TV starting Nov. 13 and via Amazon Prime Video in  Germany and Austria on Aug. 7 and across Latin America later this year.

Produced by Eleventh Hour Film and Sony Pictures Television, Alex Rider stars Otto Farrant as a London teenager who unknowingly has been trained since childhood as a spy and investigated the death of his uncle.

Also Read: IMDb TV: Everything You Need to Know About the Fast-Growing Free, Ad-Supported Side of Amazon’s Streaming Business

The series is based on Point Blanc, the second novel in the Alex Rider franchise by Anthony Horowitz

“With a 20 year literary history, the brand and iconic character of Alex Rider resonates with fans around the world,” said Lauren Anderson and Ryan Pirozzi, co-heads of content and programming for IMDb TV. “We couldn’t be happier to have IMDb TV as the exclusive U.S. home for this franchise and are excited to deliver customers a beautifully-executed, coming of age thriller featuring this dynamic ensemble cast.”

Alex Rider premiered on Prime Video in the U.K. and Ireland in June. It will premiere on Prime Video Australia on July 31.

“Amazon has been a fantastic partner for Alex Rider in the UK, and we are delighted to extend our partnership to the U.S., Latin America, Australia, Germany and Austria,” said Sony Pictures Television’s Wayne Garvie, president of international production and Keith Le Goy, president of distribution & networks. “We are excited for audiences to join the thrill ride and journey of discovery that this brilliantly created show offers.”

Horowitz serves as an executive producer with Jill Green. Eve Guttierrez, series writer Guy Burt and Andrea Prochaska, who directed some of the episodes. Christopher Smith also directed episodes of Alex Rider.

Lionsgate said Mad Men will be streaming on Amazon as part of a new global licensing deal for the acclaimed show.

In the U.S., all seven seasons and 92 episodes of Mad Men will launch on Amazon’s free-to-consumer, ad-supported streaming platform, IMDb TV starting July 15. Amazon will also have exclusive international streaming of the show via Amazon Prime Video starting July 3.

The show will return to AMC Network in the fall. AMC, which aired the show in the U.S. In addition to its linear networks, AMC's deal includes rights to exhibit all seasons and all episodes on a variety of platforms including subscription video on demand.

"Mad Men launched on AMC in 2007 and became the definition of ‘talked-about-television’ – and for our company began a period of distinction and impact that continues to this day," said Ed Carroll, COO at AMC Networks. "We are so pleased to bring Mad Men home to AMC, and again be able to share these unforgettable characters and this nuanced and exceptional storytelling with fans, new and old, on a variety of platforms starting this fall."

Mad Men will also appear on Starzplay in Europe, Latin America and Japan starting Oct. 1. Starzplay is Lionsgate’s international premium streaming service, which already has an output deal for many Lionsgate films.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

The early-1960s period drama led by Jon Hamm as a mercurial New York advertising creative, was a stalwart streaming performer for Netflix for nearly a decade. The leading SVOD supplier struck a deal for the show back in 2011 that called for it to pay nearly $1 million per episode. That agreement expired June 9. 

The Mad Men deal is the latest notable TV acquisition for IMDb TV, which has recently added Lost and Malcolm in the Middle to its AVOD stable.

“Mad Men is an evergreen property whose appeal has continued to grow over the years, and we’re pleased to collaborate with a diverse alliance of exceptional partners to bring it to a global audience,” said Jim Packer, Lionsgate’s president of Worldwide Television & Digital Distribution.  

“This comprehensive and multifaceted agreement brings together partners from every part of the content ecosystem, and it allows a whole new generation of fans to enjoy one of the greatest television series ever made, whether they’re reuniting with the show as an old friend or discovering Mad Men for the first time," he said. 

In one of the episodes, the character Roger Sterling, played by John Slattery, appears in blackface singing a song. Given the tenor of the times, Lionsgate is putting a warning on the episode.

Here is what viewers will see:

This episode contains disturbing images related to race in America.  One of the characters is shown in blackface as part of an episode that shows how commonplace racism was in America in 1963.  In its reliance on historical authenticity, the series producers are committed to exposing the injustices and inequities within our society that continue to this day so we can examine even the most painful parts of our history in order to reflect on who we are today and who we want to become.  We are therefore presenting the original episode in its entirety.

Amazon has carved a deal with Lionsgate that will give it a window of exclusive streaming rights for venerable period drama Mad Men.

All 92 episodes and seven seasons of the series, which ran on AMC Network from 2007-2015, will be available exclusively in the U.S. on Amazon’s ad-supported, free-to-consumer service, IMBb TV. 

In the complex distribution deal for the show, Amazon will stream the series on its Amazon Prime Video subscription platform in Europe, Australia and Latin America starting July 3; in Japan, Israel, Indonesia and Thailand starting July 15; in Canada starting October 1; and in the Netherlands starting Nov. 1.

Amazon and its IMDb Live platform will have the series exclusively until Oct. 1, when AMC will share it for us on a variety of the company’s linear and OTT platforms. 

Lionsgate will also debut the series on its Starzplay assets at that time in Europe, Latin America and Japan. 

Netflix had U.S. streaming rights for the show in a deal that was carved out in 2011. The SVOD company paid Lionsgate a reported $1 million per episode for those rights in a pact that expired June 9.

Terms of the Amazon deal weren't announced. According to Deadline Hollywood, they're similar to the agreement Netflix negotiated. 

For IMBb TV, which was just launched at the beginning for 2019, it’s the latest high-profile TV licensing acquisition. The company also recently acquired Lost and Malcolm in the Middle, among other series. 

With the entry just last week by Redbox into the advertising-supported streaming market shows, consumers have no shortage of choices when it comes to free OTT platforms. 

From Roku Channel to Vudu Movies on Us to Pluto TV to Tubi, the so-called “AVOD” market (short for ad-supported video-on-demand) is growing fast, as consumers supplement their subscription services with these no-cost platforms filled with semi-recent theatrical hits and digital-only channel offerings. As Roku’s recent quarterly earnings report disclosures for Roku Channel show, there’s plenty of money to be made here.

And of course, where there’s a growing segment of the OTT market, you’ll find Amazon, which a year ago launched its own AVOD platform, Freedive, before quickly rebranding it under its long-held IMDb umbrella. 

Including a recent Disney deal, which gave it access to the coveted repeat libraries of series including Lost, Desperate Housewives and Malcolm in the Middle, IMDB TV has been majorly aggressive in the area of content expansion. We caught up with Mark Eamer, VP of IMDb TV, to talk about the platform. 

How did you get involved in IMDb TV?
I was leading Amazon’s U.S. Prime Video business when we launched IMDb TV in January 2019. We were blown away by customer response to our relatively modest but free ad-supported premium video offering. We decided to quickly double down on the opportunity and I moved over a few months later to start the IMDb TV team.

How did IMDb TV come together?
We felt customers were going to cut the cord and join a few SVOD services like Prime Video. We were right, but we didn’t have a full picture. Customers cut the cord and joined a handful of SVOD services, but they still had an appetite for more video without a monthly bill. We saw this as an unmet need so we built IMDb TV.

Why did Amazon choose the IMDB brand for the platform and not its own Amazon brand?
IMDb is synonymous with entertainment, so we saw this as a great ‘1+1=3’ opportunity. We could expand the brand of the largest premium video database where customers look up content to include a premium catalog of video entertainment where customers could watch content—all for free.

The AVOD market is pretty crowded right now. Is a shakeout coming?
We actually see very few options for customers to watch premium video entertainment like Chicago Fire, The Middle, or Shrek The Third for free. These are typically found behind the paywall of an SVOD service.

What will IMDB TV look like in three years?
We believe premium AVOD with limited commercials can be as relevant to customers as SVOD is today. We plan to continue to grow our catalog of content to be on par with paid SVOD services, expand our IMDb TV app to be in every living room and phone, and deliver an even better advertiser experience for both customers and advertisers.

THE BONUS FIVE

What shows are you binge-watching right now?
Chicago Fire. The whole family watches it at least five times a week. I convinced my youngest daughter that it’s a documentary.

What streaming services do you subscribe to?
Prime Video (of course), Netflix, and Hulu. 

Do you still have a pay TV subscription?
Yes. I watch too many sports to live without cable.

What’s your favorite podcast? 
Hardcore History and Revisionist History 

What is your bucket list travel destination?
Valdez, Alaska for skiing

As shown by Redbox’s entry just last week into the advertising-supported streaming market, consumers have no shortage of choices when it comes to free over-the-top platforms.

From Roku Channel to Vudu Movies on Us to Pluto TV to Tubi, the so-called AVOD market (short for ad-supported video-on-demand) is growing fast, as consumers supplement their subscription services with these no-cost platforms filled with semi-recent theatrical hits and digital-only channel offerings. As Roku’s recent quarterly earnings report disclosures for Roku Channel show, there’s plenty of money to be made here.

And of course, where there’s a growing segment of the OTT market, you’ll find Amazon. A year ago, the e-retailer launched its own AVOD platform, Freedive, before quickly rebranding it under its long-held IMDb umbrella.

Including a recent Disney deal, which gave it access to the coveted repeat libraries of series including Lost, Desperate Housewives and Malcolm in the Middle, IMDb TV has been very aggressive in the area of content expansion. Senior content producer, technology, Daniel Frankel caught up with Mark Eamer, VP of IMDb TV, to talk about the platform.

How did you get involved in IMDb TV?

I was leading Amazon’s U.S. Prime Video business when we launched IMDb TV in January 2019. We were blown away by customer response to our relatively modest but free ad-supported premium video offering. We decided to quickly double down on the opportunity and I moved over a few months later to start the IMDb TV team.

How did IMDb TV come together?

We felt customers were going to cut the cord and join a few SVOD services like Prime Video. We were right, but we didn’t have a full picture. Customers cut the cord and joined a handful of SVOD services, but they still had an appetite for more video without a monthly bill. We saw this as an unmet need, so we built IMDb TV.

Why did Amazon choose the IMDb brand for the platform and not its own Amazon brand?

IMDb is synonymous with entertainment, so we saw this as a great ‘1+1=3’ opportunity. We could expand the brand of the largest premium video database where customers look up content to include a premium catalog of video entertainment where customers could watch content — all for free.

The AVOD market is pretty crowded right now. Is a shakeout coming?

We actually see very few options for customers to watch premium video entertainment like Chicago Fire, The Middle or Shrek the Third for free. These are typically found behind the paywall of an SVOD service.

What will IMDb TV look like in three years?

We believe premium AVOD with limited commercials can be as relevant to customers as SVOD is today. We plan to continue to grow our catalog of content to be on par with paid SVOD services, expand our IMDb TV app to be in every living room and phone, and deliver an even better advertiser experience for both customers and advertisers

BONUS FIVE

What are you binge-watching?Chicago Fire. The whole family watches it at least five times a week. I convinced my youngest daughter that it’s a documentary.
What streaming services do you subscribe to? Prime Video (of course), Netflix and Hulu.
Do you still have a pay TV subscription? Yes. I watch too many sports to live without cable.
Bucket list destination? Valdez, Alaska, for skiing.
Favorite podcasts?Hardcore History and Revisionist History

Amazon has made its new AVOD platform, IMDb TV, available on iOS and Android mobile devices.

Users will now be able to watch the ad-supported, free-to-consumer on-demand streaming service on iPhone, iPads, as well as mobile devices powered by Google’s Android operating system, via the IMDb mobile app.

Also Read: Amazon AVOD Platform IMDb TV Launches First Original

In its press release today, Amazon also said that it has “new” deals with Paramount and Lionsgate, and is touting the addition of 2013 Academy Award-winning bi-polar-themed romantic dreamed Silver Linings Playbook, as well as the immortality-themed Age of Adaline.

IMDb TV recently announced exclusive streaming access to ABC sitcom The Middle. And it also recently announced an original series, the short form, psychotherapy-themed animated comedy short You’re Not a Monster.

Amazon, however, hasn't released an usage data yet for the platform, which launched earlier this year.

As for mobile device reach, that should produce an incremental increase in usage, with most OTT consumption coming through connected TV devices these days.