Strikes Haven’t Impacted Amazon Content Spend

 

Strikes Haven’t Impacted Amazon Content Spend

After 2023’s extended labor shutdown and its rippling impacts, you would imagine we’d see lower content spend from the streaming platforms and studios under the AMPTP banner. For at least one, however, the reality seems a little different. Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer Los Angeles with Blake & Wang P.A., shares some surprising news about Amazon’s bottom line with us.

 


                                                                            Brandon Blake

$18.9B Content Spend

Across all of its arms, MGM, Freevee, and live sports included, Amazon spent almost $19B on content in 2023. That’s slightly ahead of its $16.6B 2022 spending. Regarding the 2022 figures, we know that just about $7B of that was split between their live sports streaming, licensing deals, and Amazon Originals content. We have yet to get the corresponding 2023 data for that.

 

However, 2023 saw Amazon investing heavily in the live sports market, bringing both a Black Friday NFL game to the screen and considerable investment in its Thursday Night Football slate. 2023 would also have been the first full year of MGM ownership for the company.

A Streamer on Its Own Mission?

Amazon has always operated a little differently from other streaming platforms in the game. Unlike rival Netflix, it isn’t officially ‘in the black’ for its streaming services alone. However, Prime Access never has been just about its streaming offerings (in fact, they’re something of an ‘extra perk’ rather than a primary service). With the juggernaut of its shopping platform behind it, they have faced few of the budgetary woes that other streamers have in the last 2 years.

 

This has left them with more agility in the market even with the squeeze of the strikes. As of their Q4 earnings call, they were quick to point out that most content spending has been funneled towards new sports rights, particularly for non-domestic markets like the UK. They were just as quick to point out that those same sports rights continue to see positive consumer responses and growth. However, this boost to content spending, however small, definitely makes it an outlier in what was a subdued year for content spending. Now all that remains is to see how well this unique market positioning can work for them as we go ahead into a year where ‘normal’ may finally be on the cards.

 

 

 

 

 

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