Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) recently announced its decision to produce five original TV series. The final five were chosen from a group of 14 pilots that were earlier produced by its film production division, Amazon Studios.
These include 2 comedy series, Alpha House, a political comedy about four senators who live together in a rented house in Washington DC and Betas, a comedy about start-up culture in Silicon Valley. There are 3 children shows namely Annebots, a show about robots; Creative Galaxy, an animated art adventure series and Tumbleaf, a show about a small blue fox named Fig.
Management stated that these new series will be available on the Amazon Instant Video streaming service, where viewers can watch them free of cost.
Amazon Instant Video is a digital video streaming and download service that lets users rent, buy or subscribe to a range of video content. These new television series will extend the archive of comedy and children shows on Amazon's video streaming library, making it a significant force in the video streaming segment and increasing competition for Netflix Inc (NFLX) and Apple Inc. (AAPL).
Many technology companies, including Hulu and Netflix, are getting into content production in order to reduce their reliance on traditional media companies. Amazon is also one of several big streaming services working on original content and has now finally decided to release its shows by the end of this year and in early 2014. We believe these efforts will bring in millions of dollars and help the company to increase its market share.
Besides developing its own original series, Amazon has also been beefing up its Prime Instant Video service through major licensing agreements. The company recently inked exclusive streaming rights to the PBS hit drama, Downton Abbey, FX's Justified and the upcoming CBS show Under the Dome.
Amazon is one of the leading players in an extremely fast-growing market. In the first quarter, Amazon’s earnings were well ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 10 cents. But revenues of $16.07 billion were down sequentially as well as from the year-ago quarter.
Amazon currently retains a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Another technology stock IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI), has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and is worth considering.
To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
Get all Zacks Research Reports and be alerted to fast-breaking buy and sell opportunities every trading day.
Be the first to comment