Confirmed: Amazon Denies Reports That Free Streaming Service Freevee Will Shutter; ‘No Changes to Freevee’
Confirmed: Amazon Denies Reports That Free Streaming Service Freevee Will Shutter; ‘No Changes to Freevee’
Stories began to circulate on Wednesday that Amazon’s free ad-supported streaming service would be shut down in coming months.
There may be reason to pump the breaks on reports that Amazon is sunsetting Freevee. An exclusive report from Ad Week laid out details that indicated that Amazon planned to shut down its free ad-supported streaming platform, but Vulture’s West Coast editor Josef Adalian was first to report that he had received word from Amazon representatives that no such changes were in the offing for the service. The Streamable was able to confirm Vulture’s reporting as an Amazon representative said, “There are no changes to Freevee.”
- Amazon’s reps indicate that there are no plans to shut down Freevee in 2024.
- The desire by Amazon to build its ads business would seem to indicate it’s better off keeping Freevee in some form.
- The Streamable has confirmed that Freevee remains an important part of Amazon’s streaming plans.
The report from Ad Week cites “three people familiar with the strategy” for shutting down Freevee as a standalone app. It states that Amazon sees the streamer as redundant after introducing ads to its paid streaming service Prime Video in late January, and that customer confusion as well as a desire to reduce costs contributed to the decision to end Freevee, and that the streamer would likely be shut down sometime in the second quarter of 2024.
Adalian received word from an Amazon representative that Freevee is not undergoing any major changes in the coming months, however. The Streamable reached out to Amazon for clarification, and was told reporting about the shutdown of Freevee was not accurate.
“There are no changes to Freevee,” an Amazon rep told The Streamable. Amazon Freevee remains an important streaming offering providing both Prime and non-Prime customers thousands of hit movies, shows, and Originals, all for free.”
Is Shutting Down Freevee a Good Idea?
On the one hand, Ad Week lays out compelling reasons that Amazon would want to close Freevee. If the company is seeing confusion over the difference between Prime Video’s ad-supported tier and Freevee’s free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) service, it would make sense to simplify the offerings for consumers. Additionally, since much of Freevee’s content is already integrated into the Prime Video platform, it might not be prudent to continue spending money to keep both streaming services in operation as standalone apps.
On the other hand, one of Amazon’s stated corporate goals is to continue to boost its advertising revenue. That’s why it converted all existing Prime Video plans from ad-free to ad-supported last month instead of creating a cheaper plan that customers could opt to downgrade into. Given that desire to boost its ad inventory, it would make little sense for the company to pull out of the free ad-supported TV space altogether.
Perhaps the issue in the reporting lies in semantics. Ad Week’s report states that Amazon could be intending to merge Freevee and Prime Video into the same app, making Freevee a new tier of Prime Video instead of a standalone service. This could be all Amazon intends to do, and it could even keep the Freevee branding that viewers have come to know, while simultaneously aligning it more closely with Prime Video. It’s also possible that Amazon was telling the word-for-word truth in its denials, and that no major changes are expected for Freevee in any capacity.
Hopefully, the confusion surrounding the future of Amazon’s streamers will be cleared up soon. Freevee customers are likely anxious to know whether their favorite originals like “Judy Justice” and “Neighbours” are about to hit the chopping block, or if Freevee will survive in the long term.
Freevee
Freevee video streaming service was Amazon’s free, ad-supported streaming service offering a mix of movies, TV shows, live FAST channels, and original programming. Originally launched as IMDb TV before rebranding to Amazon Freevee in 2022, the service featured licensed library content alongside exclusives such as “Jury Duty,” “Bosch: Legacy,” and “Judy Justice.” Its lineup spanned drama, comedy, reality, true crime, and family programming, along with curated live channels covering news, sports highlights, and classic TV.