Amazon Inc. and 20th Century Fox announced a deal that will bring Fox movies and television programs to the Amazon Instant Video streaming service. This additional content increases the service’s number of titles to over 11,000, a 22 percent growth, according to CEO Jeff Bezos. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The timing helps build anticipation – and speculation – regarding Amazon’s announcement scheduled for Wednesday, which is widely believed to be unveiling an Amazon tablet that will offer video through Amazon’s Instant Video service, music through Amazon’s Cloud Player music service, applications through the Amazon Appstore, and books and periodicals through its Kindle platform.
Amazon Instant Video customers can now watch unlimited amounts of TV shows like The Wonder Years (making its digital service debut), Arrested Development and The X-Files, as well as movies such as Speed, Mrs. Doubtfire, All About Eve and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Unlimited Amazon Instant Video is included in Amazon Prime, which costs $79 a year and also provides free shipping on all Amazon.com purchases.
Bezos announced the news on Monday. “I have big news for Amazon Prime members – we’ve just signed a deal with Fox to add a broad selection of movies and TV shows to our unlimited instant streaming service later this fall,” he said. “We now have deals with CBS, NBCUniversal, Sony, and Warner Bros, and adding Fox will bring the total to more than 11,000 movies and TV shows available for unlimited instant streaming.
Competing service Netflix just acquired the rights to DreamWorks Animation films and Discovery Communications’ shows from the Discovery Channel, TLC and Animal Planet.
Related links:
Forbes – http://tinyurl.com/453oast
Los Angeles Times – http://tinyurl.com/3s2v4el
Wall Street Journal – http://tinyurl.com/3tz4nga
Financial Times – http://tinyurl.com/3c4oflo
