The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon is in discussions with several large media companies regarding a new subscription-based service. The service will deliver television shows and movies over the Web. It would be accessible from televisions, Blu-ray devices, and the Xbox, connected to the Internet.
Amazon has reportedly approached Time Warner, NBC Universal, Viacom, and News Corp. to gauge their interest in collaborating on the venture. The company currently offers a service called Video on Demand that provides digital downloading of television episodes and movies. This new service will offer older content and the delivery model will be similar to the one used by Netflix.
NBC Universal and News Corp. own Hulu, a similar online video service. It is still unknown how the Amazon service would coordinate with that if either of the two companies elected to partner on the venture. Hulu is reportedly considering a $2 billion initial public offering.
The announcement of Amazon’s potential new service may be a result of the increasing competition in the arena of digital television and movie content distribution. During a media event scheduled for Wednesday, Apple will reportedly announce that 99-cent Fox and Disney television show rentals will be added to iTunes. Some in the industry believe that Apple will release a new version of the Apple TV that includes the streaming movie service from Netflix.
Netflix has kept busy this year, signing a five-year almost $1 billion deal for movie streaming from MGM, Lionsgate, and Paramount. Google is also reportedly jumping on the streaming service bandwagon. It is apparently negotiating with several major Hollywood studios to provide pay per view streaming of their collections. By the end of 2010, Google plans to offer this service to YouTube movie rental customers. There is no word as of yet how much this service will cost.
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