With Freevee, Amazon already offers an advertising-financed free subscription. But even with Prime Video, users can see individual spots at the beginning. But the advertising on Prime Video could soon be much more, as current plans suggest.
The costs for Amazon Prime Video are included in the retailer’s Prime subscription, which is currently available for EUR 89 per year. The streaming service thus offers access to numerous films and series, but also in-house productions and documentaries. If you like, you can book additional films or channels, but you have to pay extra for them. But Amazon could soon change the framework of its existing streaming subscription within Prime. Because the online retailer is apparently not only planning significantly more advertising on Prime Video, but also an additional ad-free but more expensive individual subscription.
Is the advertising-financed Prime Video subscription coming to Amazon?
Whether production costs or licenses – streaming providers usually have to spend a lot of money in order to be able to offer the most attractive offer possible. In order to still operate profitably, advertising is a good source of income, which more and more services are discovering for themselves. Not only Netflix but also providers like RTL+ or Amazon offer advertising-financed subscriptions with Freevee.
In addition to Freevee, Amazon has other plans for integrating advertising into its offering and increasing revenue. As the “Wall Street Journal” (WSJ) reports, the online retailer is currently playing with several scenarios. The plans initially relate to the USA, where Amazon Prime Video is implemented somewhat differently than in Germany. While the offer in Germany is part of the Prime subscription and requires it to be used, the service can also be booked individually in the USA. The cost for this is $8.99 per month.
Accordingly, it would be easy to adjust the selection of available subscriptions there. According to WSJ, one idea should be an advertising-financed subscription – similar to that of Netflix. This could be priced around $5, making it an alternative for customers. It remains to be seen how attractive users will find such an offer. In Germany, competitor Netflix met with little approval with its advertising-financed basic subscription, as our current TECHBOOK survey has shown.
But even with the current Prime Video subscription, users are occasionally shown individual commercials at the beginning of a film or series. They are usually related to Amazon and can be clicked away. In the future, however, the number of impressions could increase and Prime Video could become interesting for other advertising partners. The company has not yet revealed the extent to which the advertising could be broadcast on Prime Video. There is currently only talk of “short commercial breaks”, which could also be shown within a stream.
A completely new streaming subscription is also conceivable
But apparently Amazon doesn’t want to do without an ad-free offer entirely. It would be possible for the existing Prime Video subscription to be expanded. It remains to be seen whether it will stay at the price of $8.99 or whether it will become more expensive. The plans are still far from final.
What the situation in Germany could look like also remains questionable. As mentioned, Amazon acts differently in this country. However, it is quite conceivable that Prime Video customers will also see more advertising in the future. It would also be possible for Amazon to launch an additional paid streaming subscription without advertising in this country, which may be bookable outside of Prime. This would then probably be more expensive than the classic Prime Video