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Amazon Thinking About Launching a Live Streaming Service?

4464362409_ca7801c176_bAn interesting rumor has crossed my desk this morning. Dan Rayburn writes that he’s been hearing whispers of a new streaming service from Amazon:

Over the past few months, multiple content owners have told me that Amazon has been quietly asking them about licensing content for a live streaming service. While none of the content owners want to go on record, or will discuss how far along Amazon is with their plans, other companies involved in the video ecosystem also confirm that Amazon is looking at potentially offering a live OTT video service of some kind.

Considering Amazon already offers an on-demand Prime Video streaming service, it’s would not be surprising that they would also look at the economics of offering live content, just like every other OTT provider is probably doing.

This is of course a rumor, but it makes a lot of sense. Everything we know about Amazon suggests that the question isn’t whether this rumor is true but when Amazon will use the tech they already own to launch this service.

For example, Amazon owns Twitch, which livestreams video game playing. And last month Amazon bought Elemental Technologies, a company that does DRM for livestreaming video.

And let’s not forget that Amazon bought Rooftop Media late last year. This isn’t a streaming company so much as its business was built on recording events and distributing the recordings. (But this startup was mixed into Audible, so it might be an unrelated story.)

Edit: This rumor would also explain why Amazon suddenly got serious about streaming video when they stopped selling the Apple Apple TV and the Google Chromecast.

So yes, I think this rumor is true. But of course we’ll have to wait for the announcement to know for sure.

Update: Bloomberg has a similar report.

Streaming Media blog via Amazon-Watchblog.de

image by tomsun

 

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Comments


Steve H October 7, 2015 um 9:26 am

Totally expected. That rumor is probably very true.


fjtorres October 7, 2015 um 9:50 am

Sony is doing it.
Dish is doing it.
Microsoft has tried for years to get the contrnt providers online.
Apple is trying to do it.
At this point the question would be why *wouldn’t* Amazon do it.

More importantly, what would they charge?
Would they let you DVR shows in the cloud?
And how much of it would be tied to prime?
Would it be bundled tiers (like Cable and Sling) or would it be true ala carte? With the growing size of the Fire TV installed base Amazon might have the clout to cook up something entirely different. They usually do.


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