July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

If you’ve ever sat up at 3 am with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, whining that there is “nothing good on TV,” soon you will have no grounds for complaint.

Amazon is giving you the power to decide what TV shows are made. The company has posted pilots for six kids shows and eight sitcoms, prompting the audience to choose which should become full-fledged original series on Amazon Instant Prime Video.

The kids selection includes shows about a kid scientist, magical adventures in Oz, and the journeys of Fix the fox. For adults, there is Zombieland (which is based on the hit movie), an animated sci-fi option called Dark Minions. Alpha House was written by Academy Award nominee and Pulitzer-Prize winner Garry Trudeau about four senators, and Betas follows four startup kids searching for success in Silicon Valley.

TV, as we know it, is changing. TV shows are traditionally produced by an elite cabal of Hollywood executives and distrbuted through networks and cable providers. However, as people consume more and more of their content online, power is shifting and Internet companies are playing a bigger role in how we satisfy our cravings for entertainment, as well as what we watch.

Amazon Instant Prime Video has more than 33,000 movies and TV episodes that you can instantly stream across multiple devices. Over the past couple years, Amazon has kept busy signing licensing agreements with networks like A&E and NBC in an effort to catch up to competitors Netflix and Hulu. However, Netflix and Hulu both produce original content, which has proven a necessity for grabbing and holding onto a large subscriber base. Not wanting to be left in the dust, Amazon announced in May 2012 that it would develop its own lineup of original children’s shows and sitcoms.

Now the audience gets to decide. This approach is a reversal from how TV shows are usually made. In the past, it is more of a guessing game based on intuition, experience, and ratings. Shows get made and you hope people watch them. In this case, people are expressing their interest ahead of time.

However, for Amazon, this play is about more than staying competitive with Netflix and Hulu. Amazon has a range of other services, beyond entertainment. The video streaming service is one of the perks offered to people who sign up for Amazon Prime, a $79 per year premium membership, and original programming is part of the company’s strategy to boost prime memberships, which drive more business to its online retail store.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Amazon has signed a licensing agreement with A&E Networks that will make TV shows from A&E, Bio, History, and Lifetime channels available to watch on Prime Instant Video, the company announced today.

Amazon claims the Prime Instant Video service now has more than 33,000 movies and TV episodes that you can stream instantly on a variety of devices. That’s a far cry from the amount of content provided by its biggest competitor, Netflix, but at least it’s getting better.

“In a year we have more than doubled the Prime Instant Video selection for our Prime members,” said Brad Beale, the director of digital video content acquisition for Amazon, in a statement. “We remain focused on adding TV episodes and movies to Prime Instant Video that we think our customers will enjoy. A&E Networks has some of the most popular shows on television, and we know our customers will love streaming the A+E content with Prime Instant Video.”

Today’s deal will bring some of the highest rated television shows from A&E’s networks to Prime, including hits like Pawn Stars, Storage Wars, and Dance Moms.

Last year, Amazon signed quite a few deals to make Prime’s library of movies and TV shows larger. These include a deal with Epix to get The Hunger Games and The Avengers and a deal with NBC to have shows such as Parks and Recreation, Friday Night Lights, and Battlestar Galactica.

Pawn Stars via History Channel

Nintendo TVii is finally coming to your living room and the Wii U tomorrow, the company announced, but it won’t arrive with all the features originally promised.

Nintendo announced TVii earlier this year as a service that would integrate all television content and Wii U apps, such as Hulu Plus, Amazon, and Netflix. Wii U owners could then use TVii as a hub for selecting viewing content whether it’s coming through live television or a streaming service. At least, that was the plan. The application didn’t make its expected launch alongside the Wii U.

When it arrives tomorrow, TVii will allow users to find content such as sporting events or movies and tap an icon on their GamePad to view the content. It works with their cable provider or satellite service and also offers social features like content sharing on Twitter, Facebook, and Nintendo’s Miiverse.

However, as website Polygon pointed out, some of the features that Nintendo announced with the service won’t be available tomorrow. TVii won’t be able to access DVR content, and it won’t have TiVo programming support. Those should be available next year. Netflix won’t be available directly through TVii, either. For now, users will have to launch the Wii U’s built-in Netflix app to view its content.

Nintendo’s Wii U is one of a host of devices angling to be your new all-in-one media center. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3 deliver many similar services, as do many other devices like Roku.

Well, at least Nintendo kept that December promise.

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