The Big Amazon PV Streaming Test....

Plus, isn't a single broadcaster of all live Premier league games not allowed under UEFA rules?

Yes, the 'more choice is better for the consumer' argument, by the free market idiots, trying to apply it to everything when it won't work for everything.

Live sports rights for example.
They say "ahh More broadcasters means more competition for live rights offering the end user viewer more choice with lower subscriptions to draw them in".

Balls..
Higher market fragmentation, need to subscribe to more outlets to see everything for the viewer which leads too.. higher subscription rates due to the live rights land grabs by television/telecoms/on line shopping companies with very deep pockets.

EU not UEFA, but please let’s not go there.

You don't seem to like very much do you?

I live in the city centre of a large city. I don't get more than about 5mb down on my ADSL and that's the only type of connection available at my property. It's all very well people saying talk to an ISP and get a better connection, but for many people HD video streaming over the internet just isn't possible at this time.

I'm constantly bewildered by those who suggest unicast feeds over the internet are ( / going to be ) somehow better than broadcast feeds on dedicated platforms for mass viewing.

Netflix works (it says here) on anything above half a megabyte, they recommend a minimum of 5Mbs for HD. You don't have to watch in HD if you don't want to, Amazon I believe will adapt itself picture quality wise to your connection, however as Harshy hasn't provided any details about where they live as to how possibly good their internet may or may not be, they could live in a cave for all we know. Its always possible they have fibre that for whatever reason is stuck at a lower speed.

Anyway it was announced during the election campaign they're going to sink a fortune and then some more into fibre rollout and development so you may soon be able to watch grown men kick a ball around on a football pitch in HD by 2025, or 2033 at the latest.

As I said earlier in the thread, some of the streaming platforms are a bit over zealous with their trying to adapt to the available bandwidth, and you can easily end up with the symptoms Harshy is taking about with the quality constantly changing to the point of annoyance. I can't watch HD streams on my connection, on the rare occasion anything does actually try and do it, it's inevitably followed by a spinning wheel and a drop down to the lowest available bitrate.

If I want to watch anything in reasonable quality, or without buffering, broadcast is my only option.

And as for the government's commitments to full fiber, well, I'll believe it when I see it. My discussions with friends who work at a couple of the major ISPs suggest the whole idea is laughable for the money they're talking about.

If Amazon did a longer period deal with the EPL for rights rather than some days in December, I wouldn't been surprised if they did a deal with the likes of Sky and Virgin for distributing those matches.

I understand the frustration of those where the choice is ADSL2+ or nothing, which makes streaming live tv frustrating, so if Amazon in the future decided to bid for a longer term package, they'd need to factor in those Prime customers who don't have a fast connection and find alternative linear delivery.

But Amazon's delivery model is internet streaming. They don't have any other outlet. Yes they could get a broadcast licence from Ofcom and an EPG slot on Sky, Virgin and whatever else, but that doesn't come cheap and I dare say the original agreement was web streaming only, so plonking it on Sky sort of defeats the object.

Remember the two smaller packages of 20 games a year were deliberately aimed at the internet giants to see who would bite. Only Amazon did, and only on one of the packages. The Premier League think its worth doing, otherwise it wouldn't have been offered the way it was. The fact people are stuck on ADSL connections through no fault of their own and cannot get fibre or a Virgin connection is tragic, but people still need to badger their ISP to say I want my fibre so Openreach know where the demand is - peeing and moaning about it on a web forum might make you feel better but doesn't lodge the demand with those who own the network.

NB. Amazon have two IPTV channels (barkers) on BTTV, Netflix one.

They have a broadcast licence from Ofcom. Under the name 'Prime Video'.

Whether PL rules on broadcast rights state that any UK live match rights broadcasters have to be licenced by Ofcom, and that is just a bit of paper with a stamp formality.
It may have been planned for a channel showing Football/tennis/Jeremy Clarkson and Co and Amazon expensive dramas.

Hasn't happened, so we may ever know.

Was the £90m for all the games over three seasons or the per season price. It wasn't exactly clear in the articles I read. £1.5m per game sounds about right, especially when half those games are simulcast and arguably not games that would usually be chosen by broadcasters.


I think it's fair to say their Premier League efforts have been received far better than when they started their tennis coverage with the US Open, which was difficult to find, difficult to navigate, had poor picture quality and anchored by a virtual unknown. The question for Amazon is whether they look at pure money or prestige - I can't see this having much impact on Prime subscriptions in it's current format, but doing the job well for three years might make it worth them bidding for season long contracts which would encourage subscriptions, though there is the danger then that either they'll lump sport together as a premium subscription or Prime will see it's price increased to pay for it, a price which I think has been fixed for quite sometime.


From the Premier League's point of view they'll almost certainly add more rounds where all matches are available - they could easily add two rounds now they have the split weekend, and also the final days matches, which really should have been made all available a long time ago. Whether the PL sell them on a round by round basis or split them remains to be seen.

Three seasons as previously stated. Think they took it as a loss leader. Note that Prime at £79.99 a year isn't just the video, its the music, the books, the on-demand TV/films, the free delivery (including same day), the pantry, the flash deals, the ebooks/audiobooks... You do get quite a lot for your £80 in all fairness if you do a lot of shopping at Amazon, watch a lot of the on-demand and you read a lot of ebooks anyway.