Following today’s news (26 May) that Amazon has officially announced the acquisition of MGM for $8.45bn;

Danyaal Rashid, Thematic Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

“While Amazon boasts many top-tier titles, leading originals such as Bosch and The Man in the High Castle, and has secured exclusive content such as Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and Coming 2 America, it is still behind its peers in terms of content.

“This never worried Amazon too much before, as Prime Video has long been seen as an addition to Prime rather than a core feature. However, the need to dominate on content in the streaming wars has come to the forefront, with the entrance of players such as Disney into the streaming market in 2019, paired with Netflix’s continued scale up of its blockbuster productions. This has forced Amazon to look externally for content.

“MGM provides a great complement to the Amazon platform. Titles such as James Bond (although this will be co-owned) and Rocky not only provide Amazon with instantly recognisable blockbuster content, but also affords the firm the opportunity to spin off characters and storylines. This would allow Amazon to effectively ‘milk’ this IP for all it’s got.”