Amazon Adds Paramount to Prime Streaming Service, Sells Major-Studio Titles ‘Never Before on DVD’

May 23, 2012 · Posted in M&E Daily, Today's M&E Connections 

by Terence Keegan

Amazon.com continues to broaden its brand appeal as a video purveyor for both studios and consumers, announcing on Wednesday the availability of Paramount films on its Prime Instant Video service, along with the opening of a disc-by-mail storefront for major-studio films and TV series “never before” released on DVD.

Paramount catalog titles such as “Mission Impossible 3” and “Top Gun” are a relatively high-profile addition to Amazon’s Prime, which some content distributors view as an anomaly among streaming video services. Access to Prime Instant Videos is a free bonus for consumers who pay Amazon $79 a year for unlimited two-day shipping on their physical purchases — from DVDs to home and garden products.

The Prime model is markedly different from studios’ sell-through or rental businesses (be they via disc or download) or even subscription streaming services (where customers are paying purely to access videos). But with a streaming video library of some 17,000 titles, Amazon aims to offer consumers a compelling entertainment alternative to the likes of Netflix and Vudu.

Amazon says that its licensing agreement with Paramount Pictures will bring “hundreds of new hit movies” to Prime Instant Video in the U.S. over the next three years.

Prime is only one prong of Amazon’s video strategy; the company continues to expand the breadth of its DVD selection as well. To this end, Amazon is launching a “Never Before on DVD” store, offering more than 2,000 movies and TV series on DVD for the first time via Amazon’s CreateSpace DVD on Demand service.

“Never Before on DVD” is receiving new support from major studios including Disney, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (which in addition to marketing MGM content will also introduce titles from its own library). Other studios and networks including CBS, Lionsgate Home Entertainment, MTV Networks, Nickelodeon, and Universal Studios Home Entertainment, also are contributing titles.

Current “Never Before on DVD” top sellers include Sony’s 1985 cult favorite “The Legend of Billie Jean’ ($18.83) and complete seasons of CBS’s “Survivor” reality competition ($26.21 each).

Brad Beale, Amazon’s director of digital video content acquisition, notes that many of the “Never Before on DVD” titles also are also available digitally through Amazon’s a-la-carte Instant Video service, as well as Prime Instant Video.

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