Amazon announced today that it has struck a deal with NBC/Universal to bring more popular TV shows to Amazon Prime Instant Video. The new deal gives exclusive streaming rights to a number of shows for the next four years as Amazon continues to beef up its catalogue of shows to do battle against Netflix.
Among the shows that you’ll be able to find on Prime Instant Video (but not on Netflix) you’ll find Grimm Season 1 and Covert Affairs Seasons 1-2 starting today, and then Hannibal and Defiance will be added later this year.
Jeff Bezos announced the deal this morning via a public letter on Amazon’s homepage. An accompanying press release detailed the news shows from the deal as follows:
“Prime members will have exclusive unlimited subscription streaming access to prior seasons of the following NBCUniversal shows:
- NBC’s dark fantasy drama Grimm, based on the collection of Grimm Fairy Tales, available today
- USA Network’s legal drama Suits and serialized spy thriller Covert Affairs, available today
- NBC’s new psychological thriller Hannibal, based on the novels by Thomas Harris and produced by Gaumont International Television, available later this year
- Syfy’s new futuristic sci-fi and drama series Defiance, available early next year”
Amazon is also adding Smash, Alphas, Eureka, Warehouse 13, to its catalogue, although it wasn’t able to get exclusive streaming rights to those shows.
With over 40,000 movies and TV episodes available to stream, Prime Instant Video has quickly become a viable alternative to Netflix. A one-year Amazon Prime subscription costs $79 and gives customers access to the entire Instant Video catalog that can be view viewed via the Amazon Prime app for iOS.
Source: Amazon
