Amazon Adds Fox Catalog Titles To Instant Video Service
Amazon Adds Fox Catalog Titles To Instant Video Service
Posted 09/26/2011 at 10:19am
| by Brad Chacos
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The business world is kind of like the playground; it’s dirty, people don’t always play fair, and there’s always somebody who’s just waiting to blow a raspberry at kids who fall flat on their face. Once the undisputed bully, Netflix has taken a well-known and embarrassing stumble over the past few weeks. Amazon’s taken the opportunity to stick its tongue out and kick the streaming giant while it’s down. A whole heapload of popular Fox TV shows are coming to the Amazon Prime service later this fall.
CEO Jeff Bezos didn’t waste any time bragging about the fact, either; if you head over to Amazon.com, the entire front page is taken up by a letter from the CEO trumpeting the deal.
“The new additions from the FOX library include 24, Arrested Development, The X-Files, Ally McBeal, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and - available on digital video for the first time - The Wonder Years,” Bezos wrote. “We now have deals with CBS, NBCUniversal, Sony, and Warner Bros, and adding FOX will bring the total to more than 11,000 movies and TV shows available for unlimited instant streaming.”
A catalog that big is nothing to sneeze at, and the addition of top-line – if somewhat dated – shows may convince angry Netflix subscribers into trying out Amazon’s Instant Video offering. Amazon Prime costs $80/year, which works out to $6.66 (ooh, spooky!) a month as opposed to Netflix’s $8/month. Plus, it gets you free two day shipping for anything you buy from the website. On the other hand, you need to fork out the $80 up front. So, whaddaya say, Maximum PC readers: does the addition of Fox shows make Amazon Prime Instant Video an enticing Netflix alternative?
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Pelon
September 28, 2011 at 5:11am
Amazon is getting much better content, but their user interface still has a long way to go to match Netflix. Browsing, adding items to a queue, rating movies, suggesting movies, etc. are all much easier with Netflix.
eastbayrae
September 27, 2011 at 7:37am
The downside with Amazon is all their TV/movies are SD unless they are streaming to you TV. I'll continue to use Zune until that changes.
raycornwall
September 26, 2011 at 8:00pm
I have hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime (though I bought that for the shipping).
If Amazon Prime streaming ever goes onto my iPad (and I realize that's not likely), I'd give up Netflix.
I Jedi
September 26, 2011 at 10:37am
As someone said on the recent podcast at MaximumPC, being a Netflix subscriber is sort of not the cool thing right now; however, I still will keep the service because I find its value to me to still be highly acceptable, even with the setbacks of pricing and a company split of services.
Can I assume I'm the only one not going with the popular thing to do?
Amazon's addition of new T.V. shows and movies is not something I'm willing to fork over $80 bucks upfront per year. I still laregely appreciate the fact that I am able to rent DVDs from Netflix.
Brad Chacos
September 26, 2011 at 10:38am
To be honest, I'm keeping it too. I subscribe to both Hulu Plus and Netflix, and find the $16 combined to be entirely acceptable.
Red Ensign
September 26, 2011 at 11:24am
Well, after adding up the shipping from everything I bought from Amazon in the last 12 months and it came to $130, It makes financial sense to pay the $80 now and save $50 + get access to their Streaming. I still keep Netflix for streaming but have no use for their DVD service since I have both a Redbox and Blockbuster Kiosk within 1/2 mile of my house.
zepontiff
September 26, 2011 at 10:47am
I tried hulu plus and found it to be a waste of $8.
I refuse to pay and watch commercials. And yes 4 commercials when you normally don't have to watch ANY is too much.
bling581
September 27, 2011 at 10:33am
I would rather watch a few measly commercials than have nothing to watch at all. I'm sure the number of commercials depends on how much cash the content owner wants for letting Hulu host their stuff. Maybe they don't have the cash that Netflix does to pay everything out of pocket so they have to generate revenue somehow. After all, a lot of their stuff is free, most likely because of the revenue they generate from commercials.
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