Amazon is reportedly considering adding live TV to its Prime Video service
Amazon could be planning to bolster its Prime Video service, which is mostly known for its on-demand video offerings, with live TV, according to a report from Protocol and publicly available job listings. Details are light about what the new live TV services might entail, though the efforts appear to be in their early stages.
One job listing says Amazon is looking for someone who can “redefine how customers watch 24/7 linear broadcast TV content.” That person will also be tasked with “designing the end-to-end customer experience for how customers discover and watch Linear TV content.” (Linear TV is another way to describe live TV, like what you might watch on a broadcast channel.) The Prime Video team is also apparently “building next gen linear catalog systems to provide best-in-class Linear TV experience to Prime Video customers,” says another job listing.
Amazon is “actively pursuing” licensing deals for live and linear programming, according to Protocol.
This wouldn’t be Amazon’s first foray into live programming. Amazon has offered NFL Thursday Night Football games on Prime Video and Twitch for a few years, and the two companies will continue their partnership thanks to an extension signed in April. And Amazon announced just last week that it would start streaming Premier League soccer on Twitch starting June 29th. But these recent job listings and Protocol’s report suggest that Amazon is looking to take its live TV ambitions much further by offering some kind of 24/7 service.
Other companies have tried offering live TV with varying degrees of success. YouTube currently offers YouTube TV, which gives you access to many broadcast channels, for $49.99 per month. Hulu has a similar service that starts at $54.99 per month. But both of those services have had to raise prices since launch — YouTube TV’s price most recently went up in April 2019, while Hulu’s last went up in December. And Sony shut down its live TV service PlayStation Vue in January after operating it since March 2015 in part because “the highly competitive Pay TV industry, with expensive content and network deals, has been slower to change than we expected.”
Amazon has not replied to a request for comment.
Amazon could be planning to bolster its Prime Video service, which is mostly known for its on-demand video offerings, with live TV, according to a report from Protocol and publicly available job listings. Details are light about what the new live TV services might entail, though the efforts appear to…
Recent Posts
- Surprisingly cheap Pro monitor provides unique features that even Apple Studio display doesn’t — AOC’s new monitors offer KVM capability, a whopping 11 ports and Hollywood-grade Calman software compatibility
- After 16 years, Ecobee is shutting down support for the original smart thermostat
- FDA qualifies Apple Watch’s AFib history for use in clinical studies
- Amazon CEO’s anti-union comments broke federal laws, labor judge rules
- The last thing the iPad needs is a spec bump
Archives
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- December 2011