Exclusive: Prime Video’s investment amount is revealed for the first time as the festival intensifies for the audience
Amazon has invested more than a billion pounds in TV, film and live sports content in the UK in recent years and plans to increase spending to turn it into a must-have streaming service for cash-strapped households.
This is the first time Amazon has had the prime video investment point in the UK, covering the era since 2018, as the festival for the audience intensifies amid a developing cost-of-living crisis.
While Amazon’s annual budget in the UK is less than the billion dollars (£810 million) Netflix spent on Bridgerton’s successes in Sex Education, it continues to grow, with big launches in the works, such as the Lord of the Rings series, while its rival is cutting budgets and staff after reporting its first drop in subscribers in a decade.
“Our investments are expanding year after year,” said Chris Bird, managing director of Prime Video UK, ahead of the unveiling of a main slate of new programming at an event in central London on Thursday. “Over the past five years, we have surpassed the billion pound mark, which turns out to be a step in recognition of our expansion here. We are fully committed to our long term in the UK, as we are across Europe and the world.
Amazon has doubled down on its commitment to the UK by signing a record emphyteutical lease agreement for its first permanent studio area in the UK at Shepperton Studios, where Netflix also has a deal, and taking the wonderful resolution to move filming from the low-budget mega-TV. The Lord of the Rings series from New Zealand to the United Kingdom.
New Zealand’s Minister of Economic Development and Tourism Stuart Nash said the first series in the saga, titled The Rings of Power, which will air later this year, will be around NZ$650 million (£332 million).
Bird claimed that the streaming market is not immune to the cost-of-living crisis, but argued that Prime Video had achieved the prestige of the “must-have” service alongside Netflix.
“We expect a complicated era [for households] to come,” he said. seen during the pandemic era. But this does not obstruct investment at all. We do not expect a dramatic slowdown. We are seeing an expansion in our business and consumers are happy and excited. »
At the end of the first quarter, Netflix had 222 million subscribers worldwide, Prime Video 152 million and Disney 138 million. In the UK, Netflix remains the market leader with around 14 million subscribers, followed by Prime Video with 11. 9 million and Disney at 4. 8 million, according to Ampere Analysis.
“We expect consumers to be wiser in their purchasing choices,” he said. “These were subscriptions in the past, but with the demanding situations of the burden of life, it may be reduced. “
In addition to its own video-on-demand subscription service, Amazon offers a free, ad-supported service called Freevee, which renamed IMDB TV last month, and 100,000 titles to buy or rent, as well as subscriptions to video channels for couples like Hayu Truth. Television transmitter.
Netflix said it will launch an ad-supported subscription level later this year to drive growth.
“We’re another service,” said Bird, who worked at British streaming site LoveFilm, which was bought through Amazon as part of a £200 million deal in 2011 to bring to life its ambitions to take on Netflix in the UK. The catalogue, perhaps smaller in volume than other services, is very well designed and expresses our purpose of being considered to be of the highest quality. “
While US streamers, in addition to Amazon, Netflix and Disney, continue to pump more and more money into British-made screens and films, the UK’s classic national broadcasters spend the most.
The BBC’s total annual budget for television, radio and online content is around £2300 million, of which around £1600 million. ITV spends around £1100 million a year on content for its channel portfolio, while Channel 4’s £700 million budget is roughly the same as Netflix’s.
Last year, a record £5600 million was spent on blockbusters such as Mission: Impossible 7 and big-budget dramas, in addition to Bridgerton in the UK.
This doubles the investment point in 2020, when the spread of the coronavirus shut down the production industry for months, and almost £1. 3 billion more than the previous record set in 2019 before the pandemic.