Do you remember what the first show you streamed after signing up for an Amazon Prime account? Amazon does, and as leaked internal documents obtained by Reuters show, this has a huge effect on the company’s strategy when it comes to video content.
Despite Prime Video’s status as a major contender when it comes to streaming video providers, Amazon has been notoriously secretive when it comes to talking numbers. That remains the case even now, as the company has yet to confirm or deny anything about the documents and the numbers contained within them. These numbers put the total number of people using Amazon Prime Video in the U.S. at around 26 million, but this number is probably the least important of the bunch, at least when it comes to Amazon’s point of view.
Unlike Netflix and Hulu, which offer a single product — video — Amazon offers a wide range of products, and chances are good that if you subscribe to Amazon Prime, you’re going to shop more on Amazon thanks to the perks like free two-day shipping and same-day delivery in some cities. So, while Netflix and Hulu want to keep you watching, that is only part of Amazon’s strategy. What it’s really looking to drive are Prime sign-ups.
One example is The Man in the High Castle, which the documents say had 8 million viewers in early 2017. That show cost $72 million to produce, and according to the documents, drew 1.15 million new Prime subscribers. In this case, Amazon calculated the cost per new Prime subscriber at $63, lower than the $99 yearly fee for membership.
Amazon calls this cost the “first stream,” a term Reuters says pops up often in the documents. The lower the number, the better, and in the case of The Grand Tour, an automotive show hosted by the former hosts of the BBC’s Top Gear, that number is $49. This means that even though it’s one of the most downloaded shows ever, the deal to nab The Grand Tour proved to be an especially lucrative one for Amazon.
This also means that not all shows are worth it for Amazon. Good Girls Revolt was critically acclaimed and a total U.S. viewership of 1.6 million on an $81 million budget, but only 52,000 of those views were first streams, meaning Amazon wasn’t getting enough new sign-ups out of it, and canceled the show after one season.
If you were wondering why Amazon was willing to spend so much for the rights to develop a prequel to The Lord of the Rings, here is your reason.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.