Amazon Prime Video is greater than a aspect advantage of a Prime membership — Amazon is constructing out the streaming service to face by itself.
Jeff Bezos noticed Prime Video “as a chance to construct a media firm,” not simply as an offshoot of Prime, Prime Video head Mike Hopkins informed Reuters on Wednesday.
Amazon has labored in direction of that imaginative and prescient for 4 years. Prime Video turned the largest ad-supported streaming service within the U.S. in January after it began peppering motion pictures and exhibits with advertisements by default for its 115 million U.S. subscribers. Prime Video comes with Amazon’s $14.99 per 30 days Prime membership; as of January, choosing no advertisements prices $2.99 additional per 30 days.
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Most subscribers selected to not pay extra per 30 days for ad-free viewing — solely 15% opted to pay additional. The change to advertisements had no influence on Amazon’s general subscriber depend, in keeping with a Hub survey, and will herald $1.3 billion in advert income this yr and $2.3 billion subsequent yr, in keeping with Wall Avenue analysis agency MoffettNathanson.
“Just about in a single day, Amazon Prime Video dramatically remodeled the video promoting ecosystem,” stated Mark Loughney, a Hub senior marketing consultant. 
Jeff Bezos. (Picture by Emma McIntyre/Getty Photos)
Amazon framed the shift to advertisements as a option to hold investing in Prime Video. Amazon MGM Studios had its largest yr in 2023 with 68 Emmy nominations for authentic content material like “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
Nielsen’s June TV and streaming report discovered that although Prime Video was not as standard as Netflix and YouTube, it got here out forward of Hulu, Disney+, and Peacock. The Prime Video authentic sequence The Boys drew 4 billion viewing minutes in June.
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