According to allthingsd Amazon has been stocking up its Web-video offering with lots
of old TV shows. Now it’s going to start making some of its own. The company is pulling back the covers (a
bit) on its plans to produce kids’ shows and sitcoms via its “Amazon Studios”
unit, which has already been dipping a toe into the movie business. Word of the
new push leaked out earlier this year, via hiring notices — such a useful way
to track a secretive company! — and now Amazon is ’fessing up.
A bit. Amazon Studios head Roy Price won’t discuss his
budget, or the number of shows he intends to make, or a timeline for getting
them on the Web. But he is willing to sketch out a couple of notions: Like the movie effort, Amazon is soliciting scripts for new
productions via the Web, and will pay out modest fees — $10,000 for an option,
$55,000 if a show gets produced, plus possible royalties — for stuff it likes.
The big difference between his TV effort and his movie
effort is that Amazon intends (with some exceptions) to actually make the
shows, and distribute them via its own “Amazon Instant Video” offering. (For
the movie effort, Amazon is feeding scripts it likes to Warner Bros., which
will decide what to do with them.)
Price says the shows he does make should look and feel like
“real” TV shows, with commensurate production budgets.
Lots of wiggle room in all of this. So the big news is that
Amazon is formally declaring that it’s in the original video business — just
like Google, Hulu, Netflix, Yahoo and lots of other tech guys…..
Read all about it at http://allthingsd.com/20120502/amazon-gets-into-the-sitcom-business/
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