Amazon has struck a deal with 20th Century Fox adding a slew of TV and movie content to Amazon Instant Video. The Amazon Instant Video service, free to Amazon Prime members, will get shows like Arrested Development, 24, and The X-files, along with a bunch 20th Century Fox movies, this fall.
With this deal Amazon Instant Video offers up 11,000 movies and TV shows, for free, to Amazon Prime subscribers. Amazon Prime currently costs $79 a year giving its members free two-day shipping and the bonus of Instant Video.
Amazon is clearly motivated to add content to their service in an effort to gain Prime members and potentially snatch away some of Netflix’s unhappy customers. While Netflix offers almost double the streaming content of Amazon, 20,000 videos, it is also more expensive at $7.99 a month. Amazon’s Instant Video works out to $6.58 a month plus the two-day shipping bonus of a Prime Membership.
Netflix isn’t just sitting idly by though. The company struck a deal with DreamWorks Animation to bring their content on board. Some are skeptical of that deal. CNET’s Greg Sandoval called it “more spin than win” because the content won’t be available until 2013 and it feels like it is being used to distract consumers from the loss of Starz content.
If Amazon can keep making deals like this, especially for content that Netflix doesn’t have, they could put Instant Video in a position to be competitive. It will be even more compelling if the rumors about Amazon’s tablet come true and the device brings with it a free year of Prime and support for their streaming content, at a $250 price point.
Someone desperately needs to take advantage of Netflix stumbling. The Dish Network/Blockbuster offering is great but they definitely missed the boat by offering it to only Dish Network Subscribers first. Now is the best time for competitors to cash in, not in a few months. Here’s hoping that Amazon keeps up their push to add more content and Netflix is forced to reevaluate their business model. Competition is always good for consumers.
