Amazon Prime Video Subscribers Lose Past Seasons of HBO Shows Ahead of HBO Max Launch
For Amazon Prime Video subscribers, one of the big benefits of the service ended this week. For the past few years, if you had Amazon Prime, you had free access to past seasons of a large library of hit HBO shows. That meant that even if you didn’t subscribe to HBO, you could watch episodes of The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiam, Veep, Sex and the City, and The Wire.
Now though, to catch up on those shows, you will need to sign-up for HBO Max.
The content was originally slated to disappear from Amazon Prime Video in late-November 2019, but in a last minute extension it was pushed until May 20, 2020. Subscribers of HBO through Amazon Prime Video Channels will still have access to the content, but as of now, won’t get access to additional “Max” content.
With HBO Max set to launch next week on May 27th, WarnerMedia and Amazon still don’t have a deal to carry the service on Fire TV devices. Last week, AT&T President and future CEO, John Stankey said, “It looks like we may not be in the Amazon Fire App Store when is all said is done.” The company has also not reached a deal with Roku to carry the service.
Other services like Disney+, Hulu, Apple TV+ are all available on Amazon Fire TV, but not through Amazon Prime Video Channels. Since Amazon Channels already distributes HBO NOW, the two sides not only have to reach a deal to upgrade current subscribers to HBO Max, but whether they will continue to distribute it through their marketplace going forward.
At a 30% monthly nut, it is probably too expensive for HBO to continue to do that — which may mean that HBO Max won’t be on Amazon Fire TV, at least right away.