Amazon Readies Free Video Streaming Service – Report

Amazon.com could be about to expand into a new environment with the report that it is about to start up its own cloud-based television station.

The dominating web services and retail sales provider, seeing video-streaming providers such as Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV and Google’s Play and YouTube gaining more and more control of the sector, is readying its own new free-of-charge, ad-supported streaming television and music-video service, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Cloud Television

Because the new streaming service likely will feature original series and may include licensed programming, this amounts to an independent, on-demand, cloud-based television station.

The new service, which the Journal said will launch in the coming months, will be a separate entity from Amazon’s existing Prime video service, which currently charges members $99 (£60) per year to watch videos and listen to music on personal connected devices.

If and when the free service becomes a reality, it is expected that Amazon would drop – or at least reconfigure – the Prime service.

Amazon already has held negotiations with the creators of “Betas,” a series about a Silicon Valley startup that Amazon produced last year for Prime, the Journal said.

Amazon also plans to offer free music videos with advertising to users visiting its retail website, Journal sources said. The videos would be offered as an enticement for customers to buy CDs or DVDs.

An Amazon spokeswoman contacted by eWEEK had no comment on 27 March.

Amazon has invited media members to an event in New York on 2 April, where it is expected to release a streaming-video device that is expected to compete with Roku, Google’s Chromecast and Apple TV.

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Originally published on eWeek.