Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) announced that its film production division, Amazon Studios, has approved a pilot for the children's series, Maker Shack Agency. The pilot programming, sixth of its kind in the last two months, will likely make Amazon’s Prime Instant video service more attractive to its customers.
The series, produced by Electus Studios, aims to entertain kids while encouraging them to solve their problems through science and technology-inspired inventions.
The production team will work with Applied Minds, a research and development firm, to design the gadgets featured in each show.
Last month, Amazon Studios announced five new kids pilots, including Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street, a live-action adventure show, Grid Smasher, an innovative story with great visuals, Hard-Boiled Eggheadsn, an animated action-comedy for the age group of 6-11 years, The Jo B. & G. Raff Show and an animated series, Wishenpoof!.
Management stated that all the six pilots will be available on the Amazon Instant Video streaming service where viewers can watch them for free. Amazon Studios will decide which shows to produce depending on viewers' feedback.
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 pilots will further extend the archive of children shows in Amazon's video streaming library, making it a significant player in the video streaming segment and increasing competition for Netflix Inc (NFLX) and Apple Inc. (AAPL).
The completed pilots will be exclusively available to Prime members through Prime Instant Video and Lovefilm in the U.K for no additional cost. Lovefilm is Amazon’s European DVD and streaming movie service, which has almost 2 million subscribers.
Recently, in June, Amazon announced its decision to produce five original TV series from a group of 14 pilots that were earlier produced by Amazon Studios. These TV series, two comedy series and three children shows, will be available on the Amazon Instant Video streaming service later this year and in early 2014.
Many technology companies are getting into content production, including Hulu and Netflix, to reduce their reliance on traditional media companies. Amazon has been working on this for a while now and we believe these efforts will bring in millions of dollars and help the company increase its market share.
Amazon is one of the leading players in an extremely fast-growing market. In the second quarter, Amazon’s top and bottom lines missed our expectations. The company is making huge investments in fulfillment and technology & content, which might continue to impact the company’s bottom line, going forward.
Currently, Amazon’s shares hold a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell). Another stock that has been performing well and is worth a look is SanDisk (SNDK), carrying a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
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