Amazon is really ramping up its efforts in terms of bringing content to Prime Instant Video subscribers. And today it has announced a new multi-year licensing deal in the US with EPIX.
EPIX is a joint venture between Viacom Inc, its Paramount Pictures unit, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM) and Lionsgate. It touts itself as a “premium entertainment network”, delivering movies, classic titles, original films, comedy, music and sports to viewers across the country. It had previously signed a five year streaming deal with Netflix, the first two years of which were exclusive – but this period has now ended.
Amazon Instant Video is a digital video streaming and download service that lets users rent, buy or subscribe to a range of video content. Launched in April last year, Prime Instant Video is its video subscription service which, before today, made more than 22,000 movies and TV shows available to stream. It’s free to those who subscribe to its 2-day shipping service Amazon Prime, charged at an annual rate.
Over the past 12 months, Amazon has announced a slew of content agreements with every major Hollywood studio, as well as some of the major cable networks. With EPIX on board, this will see thousands of new titles added to its arsenal – including The Avengers, Iron Man 2, The Hunger Games, Transformers, Dark of the Moon, Thor and Rango.
The 💜 of EU tech
The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
“We are investing hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the Prime Instant Video library for our customers,” says Bill Carr, Vice President of Video and Music at Amazon. “We have now more than doubled this selection of movies and TV episodes to over 25,000 titles in just under a year. We are thrilled to be able to offer our customers such popular EPIX titles, many of which were just recently in theaters. We can tell from the data that our customers love watching movies on Prime Instant Video.”
Prime Instant Video is available for Kindle Fire, Roku, iPad, Xbox 360 and other connected devices – the PlayStation 3 finally got it back in April. Prime Instant Video is available to US customers only.
Amazon inked a deal to bring Paramount movies to Prime Instant back in May. This was followed by MGM, an expanded NBCUniversal deal and ESPN 30 for 30. With this EPIX deal, Prime Instant Video now stands at more than 25,000 movies and TV episodes – more than double the figure since the Kindle Fire launched last September.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.