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Television Entertainment

Amazon Says It's Open To Pushing Content Through Cable Boxes (bloomberg.com) 21

Amazon, the e-commerce giant that's shaking up the entertainment industry, says it's open to pursuing deals to stream content through cable operators' set-top boxes, much like Netflix has done in the U.S. and Europe. From a report on Bloomberg: "Amazon is definitely open to those partnerships and to be fair, we haven't done as much there as Netflix have done," Alex Green, managing director of Amazon Video, said Thursday at the Cable Congress conference in Brussels. So far, Amazon has been more focused on growing its customers and building its own devices, he said. But "we do talk to all sorts of players in the cable industry." Amazon, which won its first Academy Awards last month for movies "Manchester by the Sea," and "The Salesman," is challenging pay-TV providers and video-game developers as the Seattle-based company expands beyond its online retail roots with growing media ambitions. The rise of internet-based subscription services from the likes of Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Alphabet's YouTube, have stoked analyst predictions that consumers will increasingly ditch cable and kill traditional TV.
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Amazon Says It's Open To Pushing Content Through Cable Boxes

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  • Chromecast support (Score:4, Interesting)

    by elzurawka ( 671029 ) on Thursday March 09, 2017 @03:04PM (#54008745)

    Maybe they should first offer something and basic as Chromecast support on their mobile apps.

    • by Altus ( 1034 ) on Thursday March 09, 2017 @03:05PM (#54008763) Homepage

      Maybe they could make an apple TV app while they are at it.

      • Make that a 3rd-generation Apple TV app and also offer their service in Canada.

        • Apparently there is an Prime Video app on Roku. I borrowed a roku from a friend who was not using it anymore, can't find the app. Looks like again they don't offer that app on Roku in Canada.

          But hey, lets go after the Cable box market, because that is clearly a growing market segment...

        • by EvilSS ( 557649 )
          None of that is likely to happen. Amazon and Google don't play nice, Amazon wants to push their Fire devices, and Amazon doesn't want to pay Apple 30% to sell content in their apps. It's gone so far that Amazon doesn't even sell Chromecast or Apple TV anymore. The only right now options are FireTV, FireTV Stick, Roku, some TV's, and the latest NVidia Shield TV firmware, where there is an Amazon Video app side loaded in the firmware.
          • Amazon.ca does not sell the fireTV, or Firestick, unless they are actually $150, in which case i dont think they understand their target audience. Since amazon prime video came to Canada, i've watch 3/4 of one movie, because I want to watch things on my TV, not my phone or PC.

            • by EvilSS ( 557649 )
              Yea that's weird. Maybe now that they launched prime video up there they will get the Fire devices out as well.
          • by Altus ( 1034 )

            They have an app for the iphone, you have to go to the web if you want to buy content but you can view it on the device. I'm a whole lot more likely to buy content from their store if I can actually view it on my TV.

            • by EvilSS ( 557649 )

              They have an app for the iphone, you have to go to the web if you want to buy content but you can view it on the device. I'm a whole lot more likely to buy content from their store if I can actually view it on my TV.

              iPhone yes, but not Apple TV. I think iPhone is just too big for them to ignore it, unlike the TV platforms. Apple TV is also missing a few others like all of the Ultraviolet apps like VUDU (also available on iOS). Honestly Shield and Roku are the best streaming TV devices at the moment. The only major vendors missing on both of those are Apple and the new DirecTV Now, and those aren't going to make much difference to most people.

              Plus the Apple TV remote makes me want to club baby seals.

    • by unrtst ( 777550 )

      IMO, everything is shitty because of anti competitive practices.
      * amazon devices should support all the normal android things (ie. google apps, like hangouts, mail, chromecast, etc)
      * amazon should provide their apps via the normal google play store, rather than requiring use of their own app store (amazon underground), so that normal android devices can easily get prime video/etc.
      * Ditto for supporting airplay from the various apps, assuming that doesn't have overly restrictive licensing
      * cable/satellite/ne

      • by swb ( 14022 )

        I'd also add -- where is our long-tail library of older content *at least* for on-demand rental?

        Why are they still keeping content decades old away from us? I'm sure there's all the usual arguments about how on-demand streaming was never included in the rights negotiations, but in many cases every other format including Super-8 was negotiated so what makes on-demand rental so much harder?

        It's like they don't want to make money.

  • You are showing me the wrong movie! and you wont give me a refund!! .
  • I'm still getting used to picking up packages from Amazon Locker at the 7-11 down the street. Can't wait to get packages to arrive via cable!
  • Will we be doing extra work clicking the "x's" on commercials that pop up?
  • Who is to say they aren't already prepared to launch it. Seems like the MSO's are lapping up reselling Comcast's X1 platform. It would simply mean creating an app to run on those STBs and they would have wide penetration of the US market's STBs.

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