Battle for Streaming Sub Dollars Heats Up With Exclusive Amazon-HBO Deal
Amazon’s deal with HBO for exclusive streaming rights for select HBO original series positions Prime Instant Video as a “viable competitor and potentially more appealing alternative to Netflix,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter in a research report Wednesday. The multiyear licensing agreement gives Amazon -- which recently raised its annual Prime subscription fee by $20 -- rights to HBO original programs and miniseries.
The deal raises the stakes in the contest over consumer subscription dollars between Amazon and Netflix. The latter announced this week that it would raise subscription fees for new members by $1-$2, depending on country, and let existing members keep their $7.99 fees for a “generous time period” before instituting a subscription increase for them, too. Revenue from fee increases “will enable us to acquire more content and deliver an even better streaming experience,” Netflix said in a shareholder letter.
Amazon said last month it was raising its membership fee for Prime (CED March 14 p3), which began as a two-day free shipping service that was later supplemented by free video streaming content. A $20 price hike pushed the annual fee for Amazon Prime to $99 for new members, effective March 20. Existing Prime members will renew at the higher rate, Amazon said. Amazon cited higher fuel and transportation costs as primary drivers behind the increase.
Financial terms of the Amazon-HBO deal weren’t disclosed, but Pachter noted that recent content deals “involve payments of $250,000 per episode for popular TV programming,” leading Wedbush to estimate annual payments to HBO at “likely well above $200 million.” The agreement marks the first time that HBO content has been licensed to an online-only subscription streaming service, and applicable programming will remain available on all HBO platforms, Amazon and HBO said.
Under the HBO deal, beginning May 21, Amazon Prime customers will be able to watch, at no additional charge to their Prime membership fee, all seasons of The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Rome, Six Feet Under, Treme, Eastbound & Down, Enlightened and Flight of the Conchords along with miniseries including Angels in America, Band of Brothers, John Adams, The Pacific and Parade’s End. Also included in the deal are select seasons of current series Boardwalk Empire, Treme and True Blood, Amazon said. Original movies in the package include Game Change, Too Big to Fail and You Don’t Know Jack and documentaries Autopsy, Iceman, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib and When the Levees Broke. Comedy specials featuring Lewis Black, Ellen DeGeneres, Louis C.K. and Bill Maher fill out the library as well, it said. The deal will extend to additional seasons of current series that won’t be available at launch, along with early seasons of other series including Girls, The Newsroom and Veep, the companies said.
The deal also includes HBO Go content for Amazon’s Fire TV streaming video box that launched earlier this month (CED April 3 p1), giving Fire TV owners access to some 1,700 HBO titles, the companies said.
In the news release, Brad Beale, director of content acquisition for Amazon, counted 115 Emmy award winners among the roster of TV shows coming to Prime members next month. While noting that the content on Prime Instant Video is unlikely at any given time to approach the 1,700 figure, Pachter said, “HBO has the catalog depth to serve as a game-changer for Amazon” with the potential to offer close to 70 different series that Wedbush believes HBO owns outright, topped with “multiple seasons available for the more successful shows.” By contrast, it estimates Netflix’s original series figure is closer to 10, with only two seasons available, and Netflix “typically buys first window streaming rights only, as opposed to owning the content,” he said.