Amazon Shifting 100 Prime Video Titles to Freevee This Year Including ‘Wheel of Time,’ ‘Reacher’ and Many More
Amazon’s ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) and free ad-supported TV (FAST) channel hub Freevee is getting some major upgrades to its content library. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Amazon will be shifting 100 Amazon Original titles from its paid streaming service Prime Video onto Freevee over the course of 2023.
Many titles are already available on Freevee, while others will be moved there strategically in order to promote the release of a new season of that particular series. For example, “The Summer I Turned Pretty” will send its first season to Freevee on May 26, ahead of the release of Season 2 over the summer. The first seasons of “Reacher” and “The Wheel of Time” will be added to Freevee later this year, as the next seasons of those shows approach their release dates as well. Episodes of “A League of Their Own,” “The Grand Tour,” “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls,” “Modern Love,” and many other series will also be added to Freevee this year.
To more fully realize Amazon’s vision, the Freevee Originals FAST channel has been renamed Amazon Originals. New episodes of Freevee Originals like “Jury Duty” will still air there, but it will also be used to show episodes of the Prime Video shows that will now be available on Freevee. The integration of Prime Video titles to Freevee will include both FAST and on-demand content.
The shift of Prime Video shows to a free streaming format is quite reminiscent of Warner Bros. Discovery’s recent moves in that regard. WBD announced it would license canceled series like “Westworld,” “Minx,” and “The Nevers” to other streaming platforms in December, and is planning to launch a new FAST service of its own as well. By running old episodes of series with ads, streamers can bring more eyes to old content and more effectively monetize it with ad revenues at the same time.
WBD executives have estimated that a majority of viewers on HBO Max are watching the same 40% of its content library, which helped them decide which shows could be good fits for potential FAST services or external licensing deals. Amazon’s new announcement essentially demonstrates which of its titles aren’t being watched enough on Prime Video to justify them staying behind a paywall, when they could be generating more revenue if put on an ad-supported streaming platform like Freevee.
The shifting of Prime Video titles to Freevee shows that Amazon, while not a company whose primary focus is on streaming, is nevertheless subject to the market forces that currently hold sway in the streaming industry. It faces the burden of finding any way it can to monetize its content to the hilt, as Wall Street will reward only those streamers who can show they know how to consistently turn a profit.
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 10,000+ movies, TV shows, and Prime Originals like “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” “Jack Ryan,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Boys,” and more. Subscribers can also add third-party services like Max, Showtime, STARZ, and dozens more with Amazon Prime Video Channels. Prime Video also offers exclusive live access to NFL Thursday Night Football.