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Amazon Reportedly Planning a Free, Ad-supported Video Service for Fire TV Owners (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the up-next dept.

Amazon is making an even bigger play for the television advertising market with a planned launch of an ad-supported video service specifically for Fire TV device owners, according to a report today from The Information. From a report: The service, which could be called Free Dive, is said to be very close in concept to the Roku Channel, an ad-supported free video service for Roku streaming devices and smart TVs that's helped the device maker grow its platform business. These services tend to offer a random mix of older catalog content, but they're free to stream. The Information estimates Amazon has around 48 million customers who own a Fire TV device, either in the form of a HDMI stick, a more powerful and 4K-equipped HDMI dongle, and the new, Alexa-enabled Fire Cube.

26 comments

  1. You couldn’t pay me enough to watch ads. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hard pass.

    1. Re: You couldn’t pay me enough to watch ads. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I will pay you one million dollars for one night with your wife to watch ads together.

    2. Re: You couldn’t pay me enough to watch ads. by dfm3 · · Score: 1

      You want to watch ads with my wife for one night? Sure, let me get you my address so you can send me the money.

  2. has ads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Has ads? Skiiiiiiip.

  3. Perfect for me by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    This is perfect for people like me: I own a bunch of Fire TVs, I love Amazon and I love ads.

    1. Re:Perfect for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I love your sarcasm.

  4. Random mix of crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who does this? I barely watch anything, but when I do, it is selected deliberately, and sure as hell can't imagine lazily watching "whatever's on" only to be lectured about race & gender in some festering Hollywood reboot/sequel.

  5. Seems to miss the mark entirely by The_Revelation · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm sure there are some people that will subject themselves to advertisements willingly, but I think Amazon may be missing out on the consumer segment that uses their products. In my country the antenna was unplugged about 17 years ago. We own a television (multiple in fact - can't get rid of them) and yet we don't take advantage of the free television on offering and instead pay for streaming services that don't have advertisements. So, it makes me wonder who is buying Amazon Fire tv units for their television units in order to receive the benefit of accessing an advertising supported service typically available for free to television units without the requirement of owning an Amazon Fire tv unit in addition to a television unit. I guess as another example, last time I bought someone a Kindle Paperwhite, I didn't even consider buying them the slightly cheaper 'Ad' supported model because why would I pay good money for something so that a marketing company can lie to my friends? If Amazon sent out an Ad supported model of the Kindle Paperwhite 'for free', I am sure a lot of consumers would take them up on that offer, but when you ask people to essentially pay for a product that comes with Ads, your pushing a product with very little value.

    1. Re:Seems to miss the mark entirely by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 1

      Pay for the broadband, get content and advertising.

      It's literally cable but for the web.

    2. Re:Seems to miss the mark entirely by Katatsumuri · · Score: 1

      FireTV is my Netflix receiver. I never cared to pay for Prime. If they have any good content with this free offer, I might watch some occasionally. Maybe there are a few more people like me among those 48mln Fire owners.

    3. Re:Seems to miss the mark entirely by dfm3 · · Score: 1

      The Fire stick already serves ads; it just advertises Amazon's own media content (both directly through interstitial trailers, and by mixing free and paid media together in the same listings). We have one because it was the cheapest way to get Netflix to our dumb TV, and because we already have Prime so we get access to the free content if we can find it. But if Amazon went to a true ad-supported model (showing third party ads) and their existing service went to crap, we'd find another way to consume content.

    4. Re:Seems to miss the mark entirely by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This. Last Black Friday I got a Roku, a Fire Stick, and an Apple TV. Both the Roku and the Fire constantly throw ads at you. All the ads did was waste screen space and since they were both really slow the responses would lag to the point that scrolling past the ads wasn't worth the effort to find what you wanted. Roku was the worst when it came to ads, covering nearly 1/3 of the menu and the screen saver being used to sell you on subscribing to more content. Amazon meanwhile built their layout to ensure that a link to their content was almost always on screen even though it made navigating cumbersome. But the worst part was the ads on the remote. Quick access buttons to my favorite platforms is a good idea. Selling spots on my remote to these companies and then not letting me change what the buttons do is not. We kept hitting the button that said NOW expecting HBO now only to be asked to sign up for AT&T. They went back and we kept the Apple TV 4K because it was the only ad free option.

    5. Re:Seems to miss the mark entirely by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What are you going on about? People buy televisions then watch over the air with ads. People buy cable at considerable expense then watch ads on cable. Heck some cable stations are only ads.

      Of course these people are being idiots but there are a great many of them. Amazon will just serve some of them.

      That said, hopefully the Amazon iteration will be like the Roku iteration. The summary is somewhat misleading. You don't need a Roku to access the Roku content. You can use a general computer. Amazon would be silly to restrict their offering to Amazon hardware.

  6. Gateway drug by renegadesx · · Score: 1

    It will serve as a gateway drug to Amazon Prime. Much like how the ad supported free version of Spotify is a gateway drug to the paid subscription service.
    One has to ask though why there are Amazon stick's now when Prime has apps on all the popular smart TV OS's? Even TCL has the full proper Android TV now.

    --
    Make SELinux enforcing again!
    1. Re:Gateway drug by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      It will serve as a gateway drug to Amazon Prime. Much like how the ad supported free version of Spotify is a gateway drug to the paid subscription service.

      Amazon prime already has ads. It's a big reason why we're thinking about not renewing our membership.

      One has to ask though why there are Amazon stick's now when Prime has apps on all the popular smart TV OS's? Even TCL has the full proper Android TV now.

      Smart TVs are for stupid people. They don't get updates like Fire TV does. You can fault Amazon for all sorts of things, but one thing they do right is continue delivering updates. Even the original Fire TV stick is still getting them.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  7. Netfix on FireTV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I bought FireTV in Australia to find out that prime subscription does not work on it. So i canceled prime and use Netflix.

    So much for the great customer experience Amazon is talking about.

    1. Re:Netfix on FireTV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I feel for you bro. They must suck in Australia for some reason.

  8. golfclap by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Amazon, congratulations, you just reinvented OTA-TV stations. Just that it's not OTA but through the network cable, but I am fairly sure people don't care.

    You might have noticed, though, that people can get that without Fire-TV. What they don't get (easily) without Fire-TV is ad-FREE video. In other words, you might want to rethink the general idea and ponder your target demographic.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:golfclap by Hodr · · Score: 1

      You tell 'em boss.

      There's no way they spent any time analyzing what channels (apps?) were most often used in the millions of devices they already sold to determine that there is a significant market for add supported free TV. And they definitely shouldn't follow in the financially successful footsteps of the most popular device manufacturer in their industry (Roku).

      They should spend 100% of their time and budget marketing to people who buy Amazon Fires to root them and turn them into Kodi boxes/sticks.

  9. Fire TV? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    How about also supporting their own Fire 7 and Fire 8 tablets?

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  10. Ads blocked in 5...4... by WCMI92 · · Score: 1

    Yeah, that won't last. Ads are obsolete. No one wants them, and only idiots tolerate them.

    --
    Corporatism != Free Market
  11. Roku had this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Roku already has the Roku channel. B/C grade movies, with ads.

    As for advertising on the Roku screen, get a pi-hole.

    Heck, just get a pi-hole for everything, all ads go straight to the pi-hole.

  12. Funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Amusingly/sadly it was only last night when I commented to the wife how annoying it is that Amazon is now putting ads in front of the content that I'm paying to watch.

    I saw the cable industry do the same thing. Paid TV service; "but without ads". Subscriber counts grow... 'How can we further monetize these subscribers?'

    Now, there are just as many ads on paid cable television as there are on free TV. Netflix runs ads. Amazon runs ads.

  13. Greetings from the future! by sootman · · Score: 1

    So you pay for the device, then you can watch shows, and it's supported by ads? Welcome to 1941!

    "Since inception in the US in 1941, television commercials have become one of the most effective, persuasive, and popular methods of selling products of many sorts, especially consumer goods."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Somewhere, deep inside Amazon, there is an executive who got a big bonus for floating this innovative idea.

    Once, I wanted to get some info from a paper that I had left at my house. I knew that someone would be home but I didn't know who. So I had to call a few people before I found someone who was home. What I really wanted was the ability to call the house itself, and whoever was there could answer, rather than having to call individual people who may or may not be there until I found one who was. Perhaps Amazon can invent such a device next.

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  14. So ... by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

    a Free, Ad-supported Video Service

    So ... it's TV.

    You know, like with rabbit ears, that I watched the Brady Bunch on.

  15. They are already doing it to Prime subscribers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So why not?

    The last 10 things I streamed on Prime had an ad at the beginning. So Prime and I are done.
    At least one of the ads was for Prime! The rest of the ads were for things I could watch on Prime. With as sad and terrible as Primes offerings are you better believe we have checked out everything we could possible watch and either rejected it or watched it, these ads just throw away human life.

    I sell my life to get money to pay for Prime. Prime doesn't get to steal more of my life for ads. The acceptability of double dipping, to execs and consumers, once they get used to it, is despicable.

    I quit going to theaters when they started showing commercials for Jeep and Pepsi before the feature. Prime now joins them on the "bad rubbish" heap.