Amazon sets up subscription service for Showtime, Starz and others

I see Amazon has started a subscription service for movies and TV shows from Showtime, Starz and a couple others. This puts Black Sails, Outlander, Ray Donovan, Da Vinci’s Demons and quite a few others available for streaming just like Netflix.

And the subscription price is $8.99 a month, just like Netflix. Well, it’s $8.99 on top of what you’re already paying for Prime. But Prime comes with a ton of it’s own benefits so $8.99 for specific content doesn’t seem too bad a deal. And to be honest, I wouldn’t mind paying a few bucks more on top of Prime to get all the Netflix content in one spot.

This seems to be right in line with what I was saying a year ago, that Amazon is either going to consume, buy or merge with Netflix. Personally, this looks to be the start of an agreement with a content merger to follow later on once all the licensing is worked out.

If you get people on board with paying an extra $8.99 on top of their Prime subscription, you could then merge with Netflix and offer that entire catalog seamlessly. Additionally, this gives people a way to get “cable” shows without having to pay the full amount for cable. A lot of people have just opted for Internet and get their shows through streaming – specifically Netflix and Amazon. I think is the first step toward Amazon and Netflix becoming one company. Or at the very least, this is the first step that puts Amazon on parity with Netflix. You can buy a movie, rent a movie or get it as part of Prime Video.

It’s a pretty brilliant move. Sure, the catalog is small today, but as we’ve seen, new shows get added each week. Within 6 months, the Amazon catalog will be many times bigger and if there is an agreement with Netflix that catalog could skyrocket overnight. Amazon could pull in dozens of shows per month from Netflix. It wouldn’t surprise me if they do some account matching and give you ability to login with either account.

We already know they do business together as Netflix relies on Amazon’s datacenters to push out all that content. If they were to work together, the content they offer would be absolutely amazing! Personally, I would love to see this happen and still feel it’s just a matter of time.