Amazon launches 14 pilots to gauge interest in series development

By Mike Flacy April 20, 2013

amazon_studios — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Available on Amazon currently, the retail giant is attempting to crowdsource user feedback in order to determine which original pilots will be turned into a series for Amazon Instant Video. Previously announced last year, there are six children’s shows and eight adult comedy shows available to watch for free on Amazon assuming you live in the United States, United Kingdom, or Germany. Once a viewer has completed watching an entire pilot, they will be asked to provide feedback. This information will be collected and used to determine which shows will continue on to full series development.

In order to watch any of the series that get developed, you will need an $79-per-year Amazon Prime subscription to get access to the show at no additional cost. It’s also possible that Amazon could charge users on a per-episode basis, assuming the Amazon user doesn’t have a Prime subscription.

The overall cost of Amazon Prime is actually cheaper than Netflix by about 15 percent when adding up an entire year of service and comes with other benefits such as free two-day shipping and a free book rental per month from the Amazon Kindle lending library.

Shows included within the comedy pilots include a continuation of the Zombieland movie using different actors, a clay-mation pilot called Dark Minions, a pilot about developing applications in Silicon Valley called Betas, a high school pilot about disgruntled teachers called Those Who Can’t, a musical comedy about an online startup called Browsers!, an animated horror/fantasy show called Supanatural, a spoof on a ridiculous news network called Onion News Empire and a pilot about four U.S. senators living under the same roof in Washington D.C. called Alpha House.

Amazon moved to start building original content last year in order to compete more effectively with Netflix and Hulu Plus. Just yesterday, Netflix made all thirteen episodes of Eli Roth’s Hemlock Grove available to watch to Netflix Instant subscribers. In addition, the fourth season of Arrested Development will launch on Memorial Day weekend next month.

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