Amazon announced that it will shut down its free streaming video service, Freevee, in August of this year, migrating all of its content to its paid subscription service, Prime Video. However, Amazon will continue to offer some shows and movies for free without a subscription, thereby maintaining its competitiveness in the ad-supported content market.
Freevee, formerly Amazon's IMDb platform, launched its free video service in 2019 as IMDb Freedive and rebranded as Freevee in 2022. Freevee offers ad-supported content through partnerships with Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, and MGM Studios, including some content from Prime Video. It also features its own original content, such as "Bosch: Legacy" and the reality show "America's Test Kitchen: The Next Generation."
The announcement to merge Freevee into Prime Video is not only due to the fierce competition with global streaming video services, but is also clearly related to Amazon's recent continued consolidation and simplification of its business scale, thereby increasing the number of viewers through a single platform and thereby improving advertising monetization opportunities.
After Freevee shuts down, existing users will still be able to watch ad-supported content through Prime Video. However, Amazon's ad-supported service is currently only available in the United States, so content offered with ads will not be available in other countries.
In addition to Amazon's continued entry into the market with advertising-supported streaming video services, Netflix and Disney+ have also launched advertising-supported service versions in recent years to reduce subscription fees. In addition to retaining existing users, they can also attract new users through lower prices and reduce playback costs through advertising content.
