Wednesday proved to be a confusing one for those paying attention to news in the TV Streaming ecosystem. A report from AdWeek caused a storm of articles by entertainment publications with a headline heralding the end of Amazon’s Freevee.
The free ad-supported service, which is found on streaming devices, phones, tablets and smart TVs was rumored to be shutting down due to Amazon’s new focus on ad-supported streaming through Amazon Prime. But before the end of the day, Amazon released statements to multiple publications that had been reporting on the story including Variety saying that in fact Freevee is not shutting down after all.
Now the question is when Amazon says “Amazon Freevee remains an important streaming offering providing both Prime and non-Prime customers thousands of hit movies, shows, and originals, all for free,” does this mean that Amazon intends to offer content for free with Freevee branding on Prime Video? Or does it mean that there will continue to be a full and standalone Freevee app? Because those two mean totally different things but can still both be true based on how the statement was worded. Yes, this is a legalistic way to look at things but sometimes, especially when dealing with huge corporations like Amazon. It’s a Obiwan way to explain things.
Did you know that Freevee is already part of Prime Video and has been since it launched. In fact, since Amazon first began to offer free content via “Amazon Free Drive” there have been ad-supported free streaming options integrated into Prime Video sometimes side by side with on-demand rentable movies and content exclusive to Amazon Prime Video customers.
It has created confusion over the years leading many to accuse Amazon of adding commercials to Prime Video long before it did.
So in other words, Amazon could decide to shut down the Freevee app but still have a Freevee section of Prime Video. Anybody familiar with Prime Video would recognize the number of other branded streaming services available to subscribe to and access within the app. Freevee could opperate as a default choice and still offer its exclusives and serve as a gateway to other services.
They could but they shouldn’t
With a stand alone app Freevee is straight forward. There is nothing to explain. While if Amazon hoped to get customers to give it a try as a part of Prime Video they would run into millions of people who would say “but don’t you have to pay for Prime”. It would create the kind of situation that Peacock found itself in when it launched. Peacock advertised three tiers. A free ad-supported one with part of its content available, a paid ad-supported tier with al of its content available and a more expensive paid version the did not have any advertisements. So the question was always is this free or not or why can’t I watch this season of a show but I can watch that other one? Peacock has since moved to a model where new customers are offered two premium choices, one with ads and one without them.
The perfect approach
Take a look at Paramount Inc. Paramount+ is a paid premium app. It advertises that way. Pluto TV is a free app and it advertises that way. They are both part of the same ecosystem but nobody is going to confuse Pluto TV with Paramount+. Both have content from CBS, Showtime, and Viacom channels, but because they have different branding nd apps they can cultivate different audiences as well as crossover. This is what Amazon has in Freevee and it could really blow if it goes into the other direction. It does not matter how many times you run ads saying otherwise, there is a chunk of people who will never understand the concept of free content on a service that is a paid service in all of its other incarnations. And that is lost money.
There may well have been conversations about shuttering the service. And that may be what the sources for Adweek were privy to. But its quite possible that Amazon eventually decided against that route and didn’t let the leakers know.
