Digital entertainment is one of the markets that has shown the greatest growth in the last two years. The confinement and restrictions on classic entertainment (such as going to the movies) caused by the pandemic made consumers bet even more on this type of content. And of course, the fight for supremacy between series and movie streaming platforms has taken on even more force.
Currently the sector is unquestionably led by Netflix with more than 200 million users and a wide and varied catalog of content, followed by Amazon Prime Video with more than 175 million and Disney+ who has managed to amass more than 100 million subscribers. Likewise, other services such as Apple TV, HBO, or Hulu.
Amazon plans to lead the market with the purchase of MGM
As we said, the digital entertainment sector is strongly led by Netflix, however, Amazon wants to change this power structure. The e-commerce giant has closed the acquisition of the production company Metro Goldwyn Mayer either MGM, and its entire catalog. This purchase gives the Prime Video platform the rights to franchises as popular as Rocky Y james-bond. In addition, the production company also has titles such as the trilogy of The Hobbit, Tom and Jerryand the award-winning television series The Handmaid’s Tale.
The purchase offer is around 8,450 million dollars, about 6,900 million euros. In this way, Amazon takes control of one of the crown jewels of film entertainment content. Let us remember that the franchise of more than 50 years of james-bond is the fifth most valuable in history, with its 24 productions, only surpassed by the franchises of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, Harry Potter and Spider-Man.
As explained by Mike Hopkins, senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon Studios, “MGM has a huge catalog with more than 4,000 movies (…) as well as 17,000 television shows, including Fargo, The Handmaid’s Tale and Vikings, which together have won more than 180 Academy Awards and 100 Emmys. The real financial value behind this deal is the treasure of intellectual property in the catalog that we plan to reimagine and develop together with the talented team at MGM. It’s very exciting and offers a lot of high-quality storytelling opportunities.”
This action by Amazon comes on the heels of a series of investments by the company in the creation, acquisition of TV and movie licenses in recent years. only in 2020 these expenses accounted for nearly €9 billion, increasing from €6.4 billion in 2019.
On the other hand, this has not been the first time that the renowned production house has entered into sales talks. In recent years this has been a constant for the company, which has managed to slowly recover from its bankruptcy 10 years ago. Even in January of this year he had conversations with both Netflix and Apple, although these did not end up materializing.
Stronger competition in the sector
As we mentioned at the beginning, this sector is dominating the entertainment market, which is why many companies want to be included in its panorama. This has led to the creation of various streaming services, and more importantly, to many strategic alliances with production houses and TV channels. Amazon, for example, has made a large investment in sports content to broadcast live matches of the premier league and even the NFL.
Likewise, the company AT&T announced this past Monday its merger with the media company Discovery, to create a more solid bet in the streaming content market in the US. Thus, the company will have all the content of producers such as WarnerMediawhich has the franchises of Batman Y Harry Potter and series like friends Y Game of Thrones. Adding, with this acquisition the content of a variety of channels such as Food Network Y Discovery Channel.
Image:
Stay informed of the most relevant news on our news channel
Facebook Comments
Disqus