February 3, 2025, 8:59 am | Read time: 3 minutes
According to media reports, Amazon is increasingly shifting the strategic focus of Prime Video to more profitable content. Read more on TECHBOOK to find out what changes are in store for users of the streaming service.
What content do you prefer when streaming? Do you prefer to watch series and films, or do you mainly watch live sports broadcasts? Depending on your preferences, the upcoming changes to Amazon Prime Video may or may not meet with your approval. For the provider itself, however, they are intended to achieve one thing above all: greater profitability.
Amazon Is Planning Changes to Prime Video
According to the business portal The Information, Amazon is planning a change of course for its Prime Video content. In the future, the streaming service wants to focus more on live sports broadcasts in order to generate additional revenue from advertising placements through a real-time audience. In return, spending on in-house productions of films and series is to be reduced.
This strategic realignment, which is also discussed by Reuters, shows Amazon’s goal of making the streaming service profitable by the end of 2025. To this end, ad breaks have already been introduced for the standard subscription. If users are bothered by this, they can opt for an ad-free version at an additional cost of approximately 3 euros per month.
High Investment in Sports Content
Amazon currently invests around 3 billion dollars every year in broadcasting rights for major leagues such as the NFL. The 77-billion-dollar deal in July 2024, in which Amazon, in partnership with NBCUniversal, secured a portion of the NBA broadcasting rights, marked a significant move. The decision to focus more on sports content was made at a strategy meeting in 2022.
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What Will Happen to the In-House Productions?
It is likely that Amazon Prime Video will continue to offer in-house produced series and films. One example of a successful series is the superhero series The Boys. The series has received numerous positive reviews since 2019 and has produced several seasons. However, the fourth season disappointed audiences, resulting in a negative record for viewer numbers. That’s why it will end after the fifth season.
TECHBOOK has contacted the company’s press office for more detailed information on how Amazon Prime Video’s in-house productions will continue. A response is still pending. Since the 2022 strategy meeting, Amazon has strategically reduced its number of film and series productions, and the reasons are evident. Figures from the Statista platform show that the share of demand for in-house productions on Amazon Prime Video in Germany was around 10.5 percent in 2021.
In general, the volume of exclusive in-house productions has trailed behind that of competitors. However, this does not mean that the company has not been striving for prestige and mass appeal at the same time. The Lord of the Rings series The Rings of Power is the most expensive of all time. On the other hand, the company has worked with numerous acting and directing stars on the film front. Works such as The Big Sick and Sound of Metal earned strong reviews and awards, while the blockbuster Red One recently broke all records.
Competitor Netflix was more successful in this area and recorded a significantly higher share of 47.6% in the same period. Nevertheless, it has also been focusing on live sports broadcasts for a while now.