Amazon’s good news, bad news week
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Michelle Clancy
| 07 May 2017

Amazon, fresh off its Thursday Night Football coup, saw some changes for its Prime Video service this week — some good, some bad.


For one, a deal is reportedly close to bring a native Amazon video app to Apple TV — a move that will signal a burying of the hatchet between the two digital commerce specialists. Amazon video subscribers can watch their service on Apple TV with a complicated daisy chain set-up with other Apple products today, but a native app will obviously make it much easier. The app is expected in the third quarter.

In the not-so-good-news column, HBO CEO Richard Plepler said on the Time Warner first quarter earnings call that the premium cable network would not be renewing its content licensing deal with Amazon, so shows will disappear from the bouquet as of the end of 2018. Plepler said that this was due to “an acceleration in our digital business”, which presumably means momentum for its HBO GO and HBO Now apps, but we shouldn’t underestimate the fact that HBO parent Time Warner is in the middle of an acquisition by AT&T, which also owns the Sling TV streaming service and which zero-rates that service as a carrot for signing up for wireless service.

HBO fans that are also Prime*users*users (and 65% of US households have Prime memberships, according to BI Intelligence) can still subscribe to the network via Amazon’s Channels programme, where Plepler said HBO has seen enormous momentum.