Amazon has reportedly completed its purchase of renowned media company MGM for $8.45 billion without challenge to bolster its Prime offerings. The decision to purchase the company — announced back in 2021 — has not been contested by the FTC. Or by the European Union’s antitrust commission. With the latter organization, in fact, giving the tech and retail giant the go-ahead earlier this week.
What does MGM bring to Amazon for its Prime offerings?
Now, MGM is well-known for franchises and titles including James Bond, The Handmaid’s Tale, Fargo, Stargate, Rocky, Legally Blonde, Vikings, and The Pink Panther. As well as recent movies ranging from 2018’s Tomb Raider to this year’s Licorice Pizza. So there’s quite a lot of potential with this deal.
In a statement released by Amazon senior vice president Mike Hopkins, the company is looking forward to working with MGM “employees, creators, and talent” to create more opportunities “to deliver quality storytelling” to its customers. Specifically, in the context of Amazon Studios and Prime Video.
The implication, of course, is that Amazon will not only bring a large amount of MGM content to its Prime services. But also that there is a lot of room for growth in the form of Amazon Originals and future content. Potentially in areas of both digital and theatrical releases.
When can you expect to benefit from this merger?
For now, Amazon hasn’t laid out a timeline for when MGM content will be added more broadly to its services. But that change almost certainly won’t take too long. Especially with consideration for the recent price increase for Amazon Prime membership.
New content made in conjunction with its newly acquired talent will undoubtedly take longer to come to fruition. But rumors have already been swirling with regards to the breadth of content Amazon could be considering, with or without MGM. So the wait could certainly end up being well worth it.
2022-03-18 15:07:58