Music streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora are more popular than ever. While most people use their smartphones or computers to access such services, smart TVs are slowly, but surely, getting into the music streaming business. The Korea Times reports that Samsung has worked out a deal with Amazon, giving its smart TVs access to Amazon Music.
This partnership makes Samsung’s smart TVs among the first third-party products to feature support for Amazon Prime Music. In addition to smart TVs made in 2015 or later, the service will also work on all Samsung audio devices, including wireless speakers.
“Samsung’s Smart TVs are designed to bring everything users want into a single, seamless experience — from live television and sports to streamed shows, movies, music, and more,” Samsung’s Salek Brodsky said. “We’re thrilled to be amongst the first to let consumers stream Amazon Music directly from their televisions.”
Amazon’s music service doesn’t offer quite as massive a library as Spotify or Apple Music , but it does come with one advantage — the service is free to all Amazon Prime members in the U.S. and U.K. You can upgrade to Amazon Music Unlimited for a larger library, but this requires additional fees on top of those needed for a Prime membership. However, Prime members and Echo owners do receive a discount for this service.
As of right now, this deal is limited to the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, France, Italy and Spain. The reasoning for these limitations aren’t known, but it likely has to do with the availability of Amazon Music and Amazon Unlimited Music. Some countries have access to both services, whereas others only have access to just one of them.
Amazon recently launched Prime Video around the world, however, so if that service proves successful, we may see Amazon’s music streaming services offered in additional markets. If so, there’s hope Samsung’s deal will eventually include these new markets.
The service is expected to be available sometime this month.
Samsung compatibility aside, there are numerous music streaming services available, so if you’re unsure of which one is best for you, and don’t mind paying a bit extra for it, check out our guide to the best music streaming services.
