How Amazon Prime is bringing convenience through Prime Video Channels

Amazon’s mission of providing convenience

Amazon has always been true to its mission of offering convenience to consumers. Just like how Amazon’s e-commerce arm is catering to all the purchasing needs of the consumers, Amazon Prime Video has also taken a similar step to offer all the viewing needs of the prime users. In its endeavor to delight the viewers will start with eight over-the-top (OTT) service partners — Discovery+, Lionsgate Play, Eros Now, Docubay, MUBI, Hoichoi, Manorama Max, and Shorts TV — whose content will be streamed on the Amazon Prime Video app and website in India.

Catering to diverse languages and content categories

In India, Prime Video has been instrumental in providing regional content, unlike Netflix which had far fewer regional movie releases. They had attempted to produce some original series like Mirzapur, Family man, etc. But they were restricted to the language of Hindi, for the obvious reason of catering to the majority. On the categories side, Prime Video started with licensed content in its library and a few original contents. But these were predominantly movies and series. Other categories of content like sports, documentaries, reality shows, etc were still missing in Prime Video’s library. These issues had to be addressed.

Creating a win-win situation

OTT services have opened the doors and made previously inaccessible content available to viewers. Viewers are experimenting with the content of different genres and languages. This said Competition in OTT services is cut through with every service demanding the view time of the consumers. Niche OTT services like MUBI offer classical and critically acclaimed movies, find it difficult to go to the market. So partnering with Amazon Prime that has a large user base can provide them a window to access a wide range of consumers. On the other side, Prime Video can use MUBI to cater niche content to their users, which otherwise would have needed more time and effort for Prime Video.

Competitive Landscape

With the onset of OTT services, cable and dish operators have started offering bundled services to glue their viewers to their platform. Like JIO TV +, which is offering the content of Prime Video, Disney + Hotstar, Sony Liv, Sun Nxt, Lionsgate Play, Discovery Plus, Eros Now, and Zee 5. With this, Jio TV + can provide live channels, the content of different categories and languages in one platform with the help of a set-top box. A similar service is offered by Airtel Xtream and Tata Sky Binge Plus. Among them, Tata Sky Binge plus is the only service provider that is offering a mobile app and web app bringing a ubiquitous experience to its users.

Is it offering convenience?

Through Prime Video channels, Amazon has tried to bring several regional content and content categories to its platform. Unlike Jio TV + or Tata Sky Binge Plus, the content of these channels is segregated while being listed under the different categories of content. This fails to provide a seamless experience since the user needs to go to each channel and begin their journey of discovery again. This can make much content unexplored and also make it difficult for Prime Video to suggest relevant content in other channels on its main home screen.