Amazon announced this morning that it now has 100,000 movies and television shows available to purchase or rent through its video-on-demand service. Of those, 9,000 are available to stream at no extra charge through its Amazon Prime membership program. Amazon has been busy in recent months, cutting licensing deals with networks and studios, including CBS and NBC Universal, to bolster its streaming content and bring its library up to par with its main competitors, Hulu and Netflix.
There are subtle differences between the content libraries of each of the major movie streaming and download services. Hulu (and Hulu Plus) focuses primarily on recent TV shows (such as the most recent seasons of current shows and day-after viewing) though it does have a decent long tail of older shows and movies. Netflix is the prime destination for movies but one of its main strengths is as a library of older content that people still want to watch (with newer content still a problem it needs to work out with the studios and networks). Amazon fits in the middle.
Netflix does not make their total number of offerings readily available through its press website. It says two million titles are added to user queues on a daily basis but does not specify if those are DVDs available by mail or via instant streaming. We have contacted Netflix for those specific numbers and will update if the company responds.
As of the second quarter this year, Hulu Plus has 28,000 full episodes available for streaming 1,450 movies. It also has 25,000 clips available of shows. Overall, Hulu has near 15,000 hours of content available.
One area where Amazon has the advantage over both Hulu and Netflix is the ability to bring newer titles to users. For instance, popular movies such as The Social Network are not available via Hulu or Netflix but can be purchased for download by Amazon for $14.99. As such, its library of newer movies is substantially greater than either Hulu or Netflix, though a hindrance to consumers who want to pay a subscription for streaming titles without having to individually purchase or rent titles. The Social Network is available through Netflix’s DVD by mail service as are almost any title that can be found through Amazon VOD.
While 100,000 titles is a good benchmark for Amazon’s VOD service, it is a bit misleading. If you take into account Netflix’s entire library, including DVDs, it still outclasses all comers in the space. Amazon Prime falls well behind Hulu and Netflix with its subscription streaming service with only 9,000 titles, many of which do not fall into the category of new releases.
