Amazon Expands UK Sport Offering
Amazon is set to add 40 new channels, including Eurosport, for the first time at an extra cost, along with ITV, Discovery and reality TV channel Hayu, according to media reports.
The live television channels will be offered via its Prime Video service, which until now has only offered on-demand films and TV shows in the UK.
Via the service, Eurosport will be available for £6.99 a month, with ITV offering an ad-free version of its streaming service and access to its free channels for £3.99 a month. This would be in addition to the £79 a year for Amazon Prime.
Amazon is offering channels including Discovery’s Eurosport broadcast, which will lead to Amazon offering live sport for the first time globally, starting with the French Open (pictured above) and Olympic coverage from next year.
Alex Green, the managing director of Amazon’s TV channel rollout across Europe. “We don’t focus on our competitors. We focus on how we can improve our service for customers.”
Green, a former BT TV director who is also launching 25 channels on Amazon’s German service this week, added: “It is day one and we think that this will grow and grow. For the first time, Prime members in the UK and Germany will be able to choose to watch premium TV channels without having to sign up to a bundle or a contract, giving them the freedom to pay for only what they want to watch.”
Green told the Guardian that so far the launch of Amazon channels in the US, which has grown to 107 partners since late 2015, had “exceeded expectations” in terms of subscriber numbers.
