Amazon and Apple strike deal to bring Apple TV+ to Prime Video

In a surprise move, Apple and Amazon have cut a deal that will bring the Apple TV+ streaming service to Amazon's Prime Video channels.

The deal will join streaming services like Apple TV+ Max, Paramount+, AMC+ and Starz as subscription add-ons for Prime Video subscribers. Apple TV+ will cost $9.99 per month and, like Prime Video's other streaming add-ons, users will be able to watch all their content within the Prime Video app. Apple TV+ will be added later this month.

Prime Video chief Mike Hopkins announced the deal Wednesday evening at the Bloomberg Screentime conference.

“Our companies do a lot of business together, and I want to thank Eddie Cue, who I know isn't here tonight, but he and his team did a great job with this deal, and we're excited to get it going,” Hopkins said of the deal.

“We want to make Apple TV+ and our award-winning library of series and movies from the world's best storytellers available to as many viewers as possible,” Eddie Cue, Apple's senior VP of services, said in a statement. “We're thrilled that Prime Video will now offer Apple TV+, giving viewers an incredible breadth of viewing options.”

Why would Apple TV+ want to do a deal with Prime Video? As Cue points out and Hopkins argues, it's about scale, Amazon has a lot (as its NFL Thursday Night Football As the numbers prove) and Apple TV+ is still a much smaller streaming player. Hopkins said Prime Video has “hundreds of millions” of users.

“I think having this engagement around the world with Prime members accessing Prime Video is a really great platform for other partners to be able to reach them, easy access to the customer base, one-stop shop, easy navigation, one-click subscription, directly into an app, ” says Hopkins. “And I think that's what's attracting partners.”

There are series like Apple TV+ Ted Lasso, slow horse, morning show And break upAs well as films the wolf. It is also the global streaming home of Major League Soccer. While Prime Video has similar deals with other streaming services, the move is a significant departure in strategy for Apple, which has made Apple TV+ a core part of its Apple One bundle alongside products like Apple Music, Apple News and Apple Arcade.

Hopkins touched on several other topics during the Screentime conversation, including the future of the James Bond franchise, which Amazon shares with the Broccoli family. When pressed about future Bond movies, Hopkins said, “We're working on those, too. we will see If I can announce something there, we're not ready.

As for his approach to managing the IP the company acquired with MGM, Hopkins argued that a cautious approach is best:

“I think it's really important that when you have the kind of IP that exists at MGM, and it exists in other places, you have to carefully reimagine that IP,” he said. “Consumers are not necessarily looking for a remake of something. So if you're going to do something, we think you have to do it from a different angle, with a different take, and it has to be good for the audience.”

He compared Prime Video to a “broadcast network on steroids” in terms of its breadth and depth of content.

“We are Amazon, and we want to be many things to many people. So that means we're covering a lot of ground, because as we said, millions of consumers around the world are accessing our app, using it, each one is different. Everyone has different tastes,” he said. “And so if you're going to be successful in a business like this, you can't be that narrow. You actually have to be wide.”