

Amazon Lands CBS Licensing Deal To Stream TV Shows To Instant Video Offering - tilt
http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/20/amazon-lands-cbs-licensing-deal-to-stream-tv-shows-to-instant-video-offering/

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kenjackson
Good move by Amazon. I think TV back catalog is the right direction for them
to go. I think movies can be decently served by streaming rental with
reasonable terms (like a 5-day period, rather than 24-48 hours).

One thing Amazon needs to really beef up on to compete with Netflix is
children's programming. The amount of people I know who use Netflix streaming
for their kids to watch Dora and Thomas is pretty crazy.

Amazon's top priorities should be:

* Nickelodeon

* Disney

* PBS

* HBO/Showtime (not for children's stuff, but just for extremely compelling programming -- but this may be too expensive).

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joelhaus
Very good points, upvoted. Not to nit-pick, but much isn't much of the PBS
library already available free online?

Also, HBO seems to have an interesting strategy. <http://www.hbogo.com> is
only available to cable subscribers right now, but one gets the feeling that
this is an attempt to bring more viewers online so that, eventually, they will
no longer need to rely on the cable monopolies. In my opinion, none of this
can happen too soon.

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kenjackson
_Not to nit-pick, but much isn't much of the PBS library already available
free online?_

It might be. I can't find Thomas the Tank Engine, Dinosaur Train, or Bob the
Builder programs online, but if you know where they are, I'd be indebted :-)

Although still having them through a service that is carried by things like
Roku boxes is a big plus, since most TV viewing by my familty is still on the
TV. Although I'd consider a GoogleTV box if that was the only way.

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MatthewB
I have an Amazon Prime account and I can say that I have never streamed a show
from Amazon. I also have Netflix and more recently I am receiving Hulu Plus.
What Amazon needs to do is develop for different platforms. They need to be on
Xbox, PS3, Wii, TVs, etc. Without that, I am stuck streaming sitting in front
of my computer, which I just don't want to do.

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jonknee
It's on quite a few TVs already.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/video/ontv/ontv/ref=sa_menu_aiv_wtv...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/video/ontv/ontv/ref=sa_menu_aiv_wtv0)

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smackfu
Not current CBS content, back catalog stuff.

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shrikant
Would be good to know if this is available to international audiences as well.

I'd venture that most of the torrenting of popular TV shows happens _outside_
the USA (even the back-catalog ones), in which case this does absolutely
nothing to address the issue.

