Amazon, HBO Go After Netflix Audience With Streaming Deal

The deal announced Wednesday will make The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire, and other HBO shows available on Amazon Prime Instant Video.

Amazon.com Inc. announced a content licensing agreement Wednesday that will allow it to stream select HBO programming on its Prime Instant Video service.

Popular shows including The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire, Big Love, and Deadwood, will be among the offerings, according to a release from Amazon Prime.

Eastbound & Down, Family Tree, Enlightened, Treme, early seasons of Boardwalk Empire, and True Blood, as well as miniseries like Band of Brothers and John Adams will also be available beginning May 21.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. An HBO representative declined to comment beyond the news release.

Previous seasons of newer HBO shows, such as Girls, The Newsroom, and Veep, will become available over the course of the multiyear agreement, approximately three years after airing on HBO, according to the release.

“HBO has produced some of the most groundbreaking, beloved, and award-winning shows in television history, with more than 115 Emmys amongst the assortment of shows coming to Prime members next month,” said Brad Beale, director of content acquisition for Amazon.

Moreover, that $20 Prime price hike that hit earlier this month just became even more worth it. Amazon Prime was already one of the best deals in tech before all this. Granted, it’s not like that extra money is going directly to funding this deal or anything, but this goes to show Amazon is willing to spend big on really high-value exclusives.

Before this deal, you’d still have to pay over a hundred bucks a month to get HBO, since you need that cable TV, of course. Sure, some Comcast subscribers can get standalone HBO plus high-speed internet, but that’s nowhere near common. Now, all you need is an internet connection and an Amazon Prime subscription. (Unless of course you’re a Prime password thief, but that’s another issue entirely).

This upward trajectory of adding content to Amazon Prime means there’s almost definitely more to come. For now, the HBO deal is almost all back catalog, leaving out current episodes of Girls and Veep, as well as all of Game of Thrones and True Detective. So it isn’t total cord-cutter dream even though certain (soon-to-end) current titles like Boardwalk Empire and True Blood are included.

But that could be just “for now” territory. Amazon’s been making great progress in bagging exclusive content. They already gone exclusive with Viacom, so they have everything MTV, Comedy Central, VH1, etc. They’ve also locked down 24, Veronica Mars, and plenty of other stuff you won’t find anywhere else (except traditional cable). There’s a trend here.

HBO Needing Cable?

HBO benefits greatly with programming flexibility.   This deal allows HBO to step away from cable and dip its toe into the a la carte, internet-only waters, in a way that isn’t wildly offensive to cable companies. You’re probably still ponying up for cable internet after all, and the only way to keep up on the real must-watch HBO shows as they happen is to sign up for HBO the old-fashioned way. Or to steal someone else’s HBO GO password.

But what about Netflix?

Netflix may be the big loser in this.   It’s on the receiving-end of a pretty big blow from HBO, a company it’s desperately trying to emulate. This is a big step forward for the future of streaming for both HBO and Amazon and it leaves Netflix in the dust, holding its meager-but-growing stable of exclusives. Yes, Netflix still has big blockbusters like House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black, and it definitely still has stuff you want to watch that Amazon doesn’t. But Netflix would have to invest billions to get the same exclusive programming that Amazon now has from this simple deal.  That makes the upcoming Netflix price increase a little harder to swallow.

I wouldn’t count out Netflix yet, however.  They have a huge subscriber base and if there’s one thing we can learn from history is that consumers don’t switch high-tech TV quickly.  Loyalty is a big bonus for Netflix, and they will have a huge buffer of time to adjust.

How you can capitalize!

With all this scrambling to capture you, the consumer, away from other technologies now is the time to capitalize.  At this point it’s very important to shop around.  At this point you can get high-speed internet, Netflix, and satellite TV, and phone service for under $100/mo!  These may be separate contracts, but it’s doable…easily.  Shop around and take advantage now.  Check out our latest deals on broadband internet access to start.