Amazon Prime Video

Amazon Prime Video, known simply as Prime Video or Prime, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming television service owned by Amazon. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced or co-produced by Amazon MGM Studios or licensed to Amazon, as Amazon Originals, with the service also hosting content from other providers, content add-ons, live sporting events, and video rental and purchasing services. Prime Video is offered both as a stand-alone service and as part of Amazon's Prime subscription. Amazon Prime Video is the second-most-subscribed video on demand streaming media service in the United States, after Netflix. The service has around 205 million paid memberships worldwide.

Operating worldwide, the service may require a full Prime subscription to be accessed. In countries like the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany, the service can be accessed without a full Prime subscription, whereas in Australia, Canada, France, India, Turkey, and Italy, it can only be accessed through a dedicated website. Additionally, Prime Video offers a content add-on service in the form of channels, called Amazon Channels, or Prime Video Channels, which allow users to subscribe to additional video subscription services from other content providers within Prime Video.

Launched on September 7, 2006, as Amazon Unbox in the United States, the service grew with an expanding library, and added the Prime Video membership upon the development of the Prime subscription. It was later renamed as Amazon Instant Video on Demand. After acquiring the UK-based streaming and DVD-by-mail service LoveFilm in 2011, Prime Video was added to the Prime subscription in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Austria in 2014; continuing the plan of LoveFilm Instant, it is available on a monthly subscription of £/€8.99 per month. The service was previously available in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden in 2012, but was discontinued in 2013. On April 18, 2016, Amazon split Prime Video from Amazon Prime in the US for $8.99 per month.

On December 14, 2016, Prime Video launched worldwide (except for mainland China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria) expanding its reach beyond the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, and Japan. Among the new territories, the service was included with Prime in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Turkey, and Spain, while for all other countries, it was made available for a monthly promotional price of $/€2.99 per month for the first six months and $/€5.99 per month thereafter.

Alongside Amazon MGM Studios, Prime Video constitutes one half of Amazon's membership in the Motion Picture Association (MPA), which it joined on October 1, 2024.

The service debuted on September 7, 2006, as Amazon Unbox in the United States. On September 4, 2008, the service was renamed Amazon Video on Demand.

As of August 2014^[update] the service is no longer available for downloading purchased instant videos. On February 22, 2011, the service rebranded as Amazon Instant Video and added access to 5,000 movies and television shows for Amazon Prime members, including content from Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., PBS, BBC, Magnolia Pictures, IFC Films and National Geographic. On February 8, 2012, Amazon signed a deal with Viacom to add shows from MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, TV Land, VH1, CMT, Spike, BET, and Logo TV to Prime Instant Video. On March 14, 2012, Amazon signed a deal with Discovery Communications, Inc. to add shows from Discovery Channel, Science Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Military Channel and Investigation Discovery to the Prime Instant Video service. On May 23, 2012, Amazon partnered with movie studio Paramount Pictures to stream hundreds of movies on the service. On June 13, 2012, Amazon announced a deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to stream movies and television shows on the Prime Instant Video service. On July 20, 2012, Amazon announced a deal with Warner Bros. Television to stream two shows The West Wing and Fringe exclusively on Prime Instant Video. On September 4, 2012, Amazon signed a deal with pay-television channel Epix (now known as MGM+ and since March 2022 owned by Amazon itself) to feature movies on their streaming service, in a move to rival their competitor Netflix. On December 17, 2012, Amazon announced a deal with Turner Broadcasting System to stream two shows from TNT, The Closer and Falling Skies. In January 2013, Amazon signed a deal with A+E Networks to stream shows from the A&E, The Biography Channel, History Channel and Lifetime networks. Then in July 2013, Prime Instant Video began streaming movie titles from Miramax. Additionally, in November 2013, Amazon premiered the comedies Alpha House and Betas, which are original series available exclusively online via the Prime Instant Video service. Amazon offered the first three episodes of both series at once for free, with each subsequent episode released weekly thereafter for Prime members.

In February 2014, Amazon announced that the streaming service of its UK subsidiary LoveFilm would be folded into the Instant Video service on February 26, 2014. In January 2015, Transparent became the first show produced by Amazon Studios to win a major award and the first series from a streaming video service to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy.