Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) will add "hundreds of popular and award-winning TV episodes" from the NBCUniversal Cable & New Media Distribution portfolio as a result of an expanded content licensing agreement between the online retailer and the Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA)-owned entertainment conglomerate.
Among the programs being made available on Prime Instant Video are prior seasons of "Parks and Recreation," "Parenthood," "Friday Night Lights," "Heroes" and "Battlestar Galactica," Amazon said in a news release. This bulks up the Prime Instant Video library to more than 22,000 movies and TV episodes available for streaming on Amazon's Kindle Fire or other compatible devices such as iPad, Roku, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the company said.
"We continue to invest heavily in our content selection for Prime members and have now reached over 22,000 movies and TV episodes available instantly with unlimited streaming," said Brad Beale, director of digital video content acquisition for Amazon in a news release.
Amazon Prime costs $79 annually and comes with a free first month offer. In addition to the streaming video service, which competes directly with Netflix and Hulu Plus, Amazon reaches into its retailer's bag of tricks to offer its members free two-day shipping on items from its online catalog, access to "tens of thousands of books to borrow for free … with no due dates from a Kindle device."
The NBCUniversal deal bulks up an agreement signed last year with NBCUniversal Domestic Television Distribution that gave Prime customers streaming access to more than 9,000 movies and TV shows. Amazon has a similar deal with CBS for 2,000 episodes of its shows and with Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution and MGM.
For more:
- see this news release
- and this story
Related articles:
Amazon strikes video licensing deal with Warner Bros.
Report: Amazon building larger Kindle Fire
Amazon seen as 'potential Netflix killer'