Amazon Prime Video, or simply Prime Video, is a subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming and rental service of Amazon.com, Inc., offered as a standalone service or as part of Amazon's Prime subscription. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced by Amazon Studios or licensed to Amazon, as Amazon Originals, with the service also hosting content from other providers, content add-ons, live sporting events, and video rental and purchasing services. Operating worldwide, the service may require a full Prime subscription to be accessed. In countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany, the service can be accessed without a full Prime subscription, [2] whereas in Australia, Canada, France, India, Turkey and Italy, it can only be accessed through a dedicated website. Prime Video additionally offers a content add-on service in the form of channels, called Amazon Channels, or Prime Video Channels, which allow users to subscribe to additional video subscription services from other content providers within Prime Video, such as Epic, Star, Panama, Discovery+, Boomerang, Cinema, Curiosity Stream, Amoeba TV, Showtime, BET+, Paramount+, Noggin, BBC Select, Briton, AMC+, Allele, Shudder, and Acorn TV.[3]
Launched on September 7, 2006, as Amazon Unbox in the United States, the service grew with an expanding library, and added the Prime Video membership upon the development of the Prime subscription. It was then renamed as Amazon Instant Video on Demand. After acquiring the UK-based streaming and DVD-by-mail service lovely in 2011,[4] Prime Video was added to the Prime subscription in the United Kingdom, Germany and Austria in 2014,[5][6] available on a monthly subscription of £/€7.99 per month, continuing the plan of lovely Instant.[7] The service was previously available in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden in 2012, but was discontinued in 2013.[8] On April 18, 2016, Amazon split Prime Video from Amazon Prime in the US for $8.99 per month.[9]
On December 14, 2016, Prime Video launched worldwide (except for Mainland China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria) expanding its reach beyond the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, and Japan. Among the new territories, the service was included with Prime in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Poland, and Spain, while for all other countries, it was made available for a monthly promotional price of $/€2.99 per month for the first six months and $/€5.99 per month thereafter.[10]The service debuted on September 7, 2006, as Amazon Unbox in the United States.[11] On September 4, 2008, the service was renamed Amazon Video on Demand.[12][13] As of August 2014 the service is no longer available for downloading purchased instant videos. On February 22, 2011, the service rebranded as Amazon Instant Video and added access to 5,000 movies and TV shows for Amazon Prime members.[14][15] On February 8, 2012, Amazon signed a deal with Viacom to add shows from MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, TV Land, VH1, CMT, Spike, BET and Logo TV to Prime Instant Video.[16] On September 4, 2012, Amazon signed a deal with pay-TV channel Epic to feature movies on their streaming service, in a move to rival their competitor Netflix.[17] Additionally, in November 2013, Amazon premiered the comedies Alpha House and Betas, which are original series available exclusively online via the Prime Instant Video service. Amazon offered the first three episodes of both series at once for free, with each subsequent episode released weekly thereafter for Prime members.[18]In April 2017, Amazon began to make sports-related content acquisitions, first acquiring non-exclusive rights to stream portions of the NFL's Thursday Night Football games during the 2017 NFL season to Prime subscribers in a $50 million deal, replacing a previous deal with Twitter.[37] In August, Amazon acquired the British television rights to the ATP World Tour beginning 2019, replacing Sky Sports. The deal will run until 2023 and will exclusively show all masters 1000 events and 12 500 and 250 series tournaments. Amazon will be the third- party pay TV provider for the ATP finals and starting in 2018 for Queens Club and Eastburn tournaments.[38][39] The ATP announced a two-year deal in September for Amazon to stream the Next- Generation ATP Finals.[40] In November, it was announced that Amazon had acquired the British television rights to the US Open for five years from the 2018 edition, for a reported £30 million. Eurosport who owned the European rights extended their deal with the US Open but excluded the UK, which was ironic as Amazon had reached a deal with the broadcaster to stream their channels on their station.[41] The ATP additionally announced that Amazon in the US would screen the tennis channel, Tennis TV from 2018.[39]
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