While Netflix has dominated the news cycle of late, it’s not the only streaming game in town. Amazon’s Prime Video has had less luck with its original content than has its chief competitor, but the streaming service just inked an exclusive deal that could prove to be a pretty significant coup.
Earlier today, Amazon and CBS announced a multi-year, multi-series content licensing agreement that will make Prime Video the exclusive subscription streaming home for three new CBS summer series.
The agreement extends through 2018 and will provide Prime members with unlimited access to new episodes of CBS’ new summer series beginning four days after their initial broadcast. The deal is set to begin next summer, with comic-thriller BrainDead. Here’s a quick synopsis:
“Set in the world of D.C. politics, the series follows a young fresh-faced Hill staffer (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) getting her first job in Washington, D.C., and discovering two things: the government has stopped working, and alien spawn have come to Earth and eaten the brains of a growing number of congressmen and Hill staffers.”
There will be no additional charge to membership for access to these new exclusives, and the agreement will look to build on the CBS and Amazon’s extant exclusive deals for Under the Dome and Extant.
Those series are already available four days after initial airing, a pretty quick turnaround in the streaming world.
While nothing beats the lure of instantly bingeable original series, Amazon Prime Instant Video continues to build on an attractive slate of third-party exclusives.
“ … We’re excited to continue to offer in-season availability of more great CBS summer series over the next three years,” said Brad Beale, Amazon vice president of digital video content acquisition. “We are also always working to ensure our Prime members have the best selection, and we know they will continue to enjoy unlimited access to a wide array of CBS titles to binge-watch anytime, anywhere.”
With CBS getting so cozy with Amazon, it’s easy to forget that the network has its own streaming service (CBS All Access), which it began offering last October for $6 per month. That being said, Prime Video isn’t a direct competitor to the network’s proprietary service, and in today’s fragmented media market, it’s pretty much impossible to have too many irons on the fire.
