What They Say
Amazon has agreed to acquire MGM in a deal worth $8.45 billion and the company is expected to complement Amazon Studios, which has focused on TV content. The move will give Amazon access to a catalogue of 4000 films and 17,000 TV shows including the James Bond series. MGM has 800 employees globally.
Separately, the New York Times quotes Amazon insiders as saying that although Amazon has said that loyalty to Prime membership is helped by the media part of the service, there is little evidence in the firm’s own data on membership and content watched. However, Prime members are reported to spend about double the average spend, annually at around $3,000. It was reported it was just that Bezos wants to be associated with the business.
What We Think
I have to admit that I am a Prime member and part of that was a desire by my wife to watch a particular series that was only available on Amazon. I dislike the company, because of the way it makes its tax arrangements, but like many, there are times when I can’t resist the platform’s convenience.
On another note, Amazon also makes devices and for a long time I have said that there is little synergy between owning content and devices. In particular, it has been my contention for years that Sony has never convincingly demonstrated to me that its TV business is stronger because of its ownership of content (although understanding content creation is an advantage, I think). Panasonic has done a good job of creating great products that meet the needs of content creators without owning the content. Often, the interests of rights holders to earn from content in new formats has delayed adoption of new technologies that needed access to that content to drive demand. 8K is a case in point. If large amounts of good 8K content was available, it would help those that want to sell 8K consumption hardware. I’m not arguing that content owners should note be rewarded, but their interests are not the same as device makers.
I doubt that the Bravia Core service, welcome as it is in delivering high quality content, will change this view. (Bravia Core Content Now Available for Bravia XR TVs) We’ll see! (BR)
Image: Columbia Pictures
