Amazon has invested heavily in order to expand its offerings of family-friendly programming with PBS kids’ shows such as Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, Caillou and Arthur.
In speaking of this new move by Amazon, Brad Beale, Amazon’s director of digital video content acquisition, said, “This deal is exciting for Prime members and particularly for those with family members”.
With this licensing deal falling through with PBS Digital, this will bring new content to its Prime Instant Video streaming service, which caters to its young viewers. Experts believe that Amazon is taking such steps as it wants to challenge the dominance of Netflix.
However, this isn’t the only type of programming that Amazon will offer as the deal includes past seasons of shows such as Nova, Masterpiece apart from Ken Burns documentaries. It was just this year that Amazon also acquired exclusive subscription video rights to the show Downton Abbey and which will be available to users later on in the year.
NetFlix, on the other hand, announced that it has made a deal with DreamWorks Animation to add almost 300 hours of original programming. It also is a landmark for NetFlix in making the largest deal in its history in offering first-run content to its users.
It shouldn’t be surprising that these moves by both companies are to attract subscribers that are now spending time watching video on portable devices instead of the television.
With that said, Amazon’s Prime Instant Video already offers almost 41000 TV shows and movies for its customers who spend $79 a year for the unlimited viewing of their content.
