Amazon CEO DEMANDS Answers as Prime Video FAILS 

After Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Citadel and The Wheel of Time Amazon wondering where the money was going was only a matter of time. The issue is Amazon being a product company has very different corporate cultures and employees than the rest of Hollywood. This leads to the CEO asking for budget information, but seemingly not realising why Amazon Prime Video is losing money in the first place. This isn't a case of wasting money or overpaying. The choices of shows at are rotten from the start, a few cost cutting exercises can't save this place. But what do you think? Can Amazon Prime Video be turned profitable without changing the staff? Is it just a few contracts that don't bear fruit that are the problem, or is this a deeper issue at core of the company? Let me know your thoughts down below, and as always, thanks for watching :)

"Somebody who doesn't want a Conan series because it appeals to men isn't somebody who can run a profitable entertainment company" Agreed.

When a CEO refuses to admit that a huge part of their business is spending more than it makes, they are in big trouble.

It isn't just the Amazon content that sucks. The Prime Video interface is incredibly frustrating. It seems like it was designed by the same employees who thought it was a good idea to make "sponsored" products ignore search filters.

Every time Prime advertises a new original show, I think to myself, “Oh look. Something else I have no desire to watch.”

"Phoebe is a perfectionist" yeah she wants to make sure she absolutely, completely destroys what she is involved in.

It's truly sickening how these people are paid more $$ than 99.99% of us will ever see in our lives - and all they do is fail and fail again.

I have been in leadership at major Silicon Valley tech companies for many years. the largest budget I had discretion over was $2 million for a whole year. I cannot fathom how you can run a company where a single person can make a $160 million decision!! That is nuts!!

The main issue I don't watch prime video is because their interface and design sucks. It's not designed to present shows and keep you engaged, rather it is focused on selling you the videos. They need the main shows bring viewers in and a good UI to engage and keep them around to watch other shows, but no, they just turn people off by pushing the sale too much.

I still think "they had a billion dollars, they could have made a good 2nd Age show true to JRR Tolkien's vision. Instead they chose to squander it on making drivel." It makes me feel sad, such a missed opportunity to do great things. The least they could have done is hire people who read, understand, and care about Tolkien's works. They chose to hire narcissists who only want to tell their own life stories.

Anyone who gives Fleabag $120 million deserves to be bankrupt.

I think Peripheral lost out due to a lack of advertising or due to the plot's complexity. Sad to see that it's not doing well. It's not like Rings of Power, Citadel, or Wheel of time. It's an intelligent show that reminds me a bit of The Expanse, a high-quality sci-fi series with memorable characters and staying power.

I 100% subscribed to Prime for the shipping benefits. The Video perk was nice because I stumbled across Reacher, The Boys, Invincible, and a few movies and documentaries that I really enjoyed but in the main I keep my subscription current because the free shipping saves me a couple hundred bucks a month.

When you disdain, or actually hate, your customers...well, why are you confused about losing customers?

Amazon is notorious for monitoring their staff and micro managing performance. Shame that it doesn't apply to Prime.

Reacher did not fail - quite the opposite, also Jack Ryan is performing quite okay, but their money spender series ROP and Citadel did perform abysmal.

So this year they increased Prime monthly fee by 12.5%, reduced and in fact eliminated any next day deliveries other than for orders on Mon-Weds (UK orders from Thurs now only get delivered on the next Monday with Prime) and almost anything worth watching in new movies is pay to play through purchase, direct rental fees or extra subscriptions to advertising laden channels like Paramount, Lionsgate, Britbox, or similar sub channels... every one of which has to be paid separately via a new bank debit... There's no combined premium tier.. and wasn't Prime supposed to be THE premium tier on its own? They de-linked all the Amazon retail reviews for movies and series from the Amazon prime video site so you can no longer read reviews on the site before deciding whether to invest time watching any product. Most vintage content quickly gets shunted off to pay to play only after a short run as do most classic movies. ....OK it's a small amount per month, but frankly I'm considering cancelling it now as everything that I joined it for has been taken away or eroded so why give them the revenue.. more people should cancel to affect them in the only way they value, lost revenue

As a former entertainment industry laborer who fairly regularly had to do gigs setting up events like corporate parties, but particularly when setting up the venue for the Gary Busey Amazon Prime launch (total nightmare), I can tell you that the culture of the higher ups is to have no plan, thinking that simply throwing money at something is the same thing as having clear goals and a well defined plan, which it most certainly isn't. Every event or setup we ever worked for Amazon ALWAYS devolved into a complete disorganized shitshow that wound up taking two to three times the prearranged amount of labor, budget and time until someone they'd hired had to be the adult and tell them no when they made ridiculous requests to make really major changes right up until the very last moment. At the Gary Busey launch venue, less than an hour before show call and the crew was to leave after an unscheduled 10 hour day that our company had to scramble to fill the roster for because we had to change a bunch of other stuff, due to the fact that some suit had a capricious whim to make it all different, the suits came around for a final tour. Only for them to ask that the 9-foot tall steel scaffolding tower that we had just spent 4 hours building, carefully leveling, then lifting nine 300 lbs projectors onto the top deck of, leveling THEM, then securing them to be safe, stringing power, connecting data cables, testing and carefully aligning their field of projection to the screens which had been set up, etc., be moved three feet to the left. I shit you not. Those people have no grasp of reality, or what they are asking other people to actually do at any given time. I even joked with the rest of the crew at the time that if this was what the organization behind Prime as a streaming service looked like, they were screwed and I would never get it. And here we are. Took them like 10 years to run out of excuses for their incompetent idiocy, but the days of that long ago prophecy of mine have come nigh and I just wanted to shout to no one in particular that I f*****g called it. That's just how dysfunctional and disconnected from reality the culture in that company really is. So bad, that this outcome of a future track record of repeated, abject, hideously expensive failures was obvious even to us day-laborers, before it even launched. Let's just say that they make the people at Microsoft look like thoughtful, organized, down-to-earth kinda folk in comparison.

18:29 Actually, I think part of the problem is that Amazon is trying to *tell* the customer what they want, rather than listen to what the customers want.

This is why I’m building up my physical film library, including my VUDU library. I would rather own movies and shows than paying separate streaming services a month. The only reason I have Amazon Prime is the free shipping and 2-day delivery (although it doesn’t always arrive on time).

Someone wanted to do a "dragon riders of pern" series, and he did an interview about it. The short version Warner brothers optioned his script and concept He was looking for locations and getting ready to cast when wb sent some screenwroters out to 'take another look' Then sent him new scripts, which he described as zena meets buffy He went to wb, reminded them that they'd optioned his script and the new scriot was garbage Wb responded with: do it our way or it's not getting done Well, it didn't get done But this is often what happens, they might have started with scripts that were more true to the series, but then had the rules, and script, changed on them

*Strong Female Lead 2004* : Katee Sackhoff as gender swapped Starbuck. Superb. Believable. *Strong Female Lead 2023* : Katee Sackhoff as Bo-Katan on The Mandalorian. Same actress yet her character just destroyed the Mandalorian, Disney+ subs dropped, and I quit over it. *The problem isn't audience sexism.* I rage quit Rings Of Power half way thru S01E01 when I realised Galadriel's nose twitch was actually morse code for "we hate all men". Strength doesn't come from weakening men and making female characters superhuman with ZERO explanation 🤬 But WE'RE sexist? Idiots.

WOT is one of my favorite book series of all time, and I will never forgive Amazon for butchering Jordan’s work. Spitting on the graves of great writers seems to be all Amazon is good for.

It really makes me believe blackrock/vanguard has these companies by the balls and is somehow forcing these companies to hire these hand picked ESG writers instead of just following the books. I really cant believe these big companies dont realize they are throwing away their money

As a Technical Support Associate in an Amazon warehouse, I absolutely 100% APPROVE this message.

If Amazon wanted to know why people have Prime, they could simply survey their customers. But they won't, because too many heads would roll.

Amazon is like a child with billions and billions to spend.

Simply put, could prime video exist without amazon? They would have closed their doors after the first show.

My biggest complaint is the Search options, I should say the lack of trying to get a list of prime movies for various genre

Trying to make Phoebe an A list movie star is like legacy media trying to make a viral video.

Prime and Disney both failing due to wokeness. What a time to be alive! 🎉

It’s not hard to have the most successful show of all time. Lord of the rings, with a writing team that’s experienced and passionate about LoR, with no political agenda whatsoever

I watch more Asian dramas than original programming on Amazon. But if there's a major problem, I would say it's hat streaming services are paying WAY too much to try to get shows as exclusives rather than licensing them out. Subscriptions are costing a lot more and offering a lot less.

It’s almost as if having an infinite amount of money, but throwing it at hopeless out of touch “creatives” all in the name of virtue signalling over making a good show is bad Who knew? 🤷‍♂️

The problem with Prime Video is they are creating works made by focus groups and dispassionate corporate writers and showrunners. They need to focus less on trying to please everyone and virtue signal, and more on simply creating quality content.

Remember, they bought MGM studios last year for 8.4 billion dollars. They also own Audible and Amazon music, which, on top of the goods and delivery services, likely prop up this spending. I used to work for a newspaper group. A local paper was very profitable and was propping up a national paper. They did it because the name was more prestigious. But the result was they were funnelling money into a loss-making venture for kudos

Prime Video apps (tv specifically) perform significantly worse than any others, and their front-end is confusing making things you want to see hard to find. It's a common problem Amazon have in general. The UX is just really, really, really, really bad.

I don't know, it seems like there was definitely an issue with the efficiency of spending on Rings of Power. The most expensive television series of all time, and yet the money went to costumes that look like they came from a community theater, and sets that look like they came from the CW stage crew, and writing that sounded like it was written by pretentious high school drama kids who were convinced they were better writers than Tolkien himself was. It seems like there was some very inefficient spending there if that quality cost so much.

If only there were a band of hard working RU-vidrs who could have pointed all these problems out for these executives for the last 5 years…

"And all of these men, had to sit there and act like they didn't know what the answer was" it's a conundrum for me as well Bill...

Take it from both a Frenchman and a Canuck, and from a Tolkien-tuber who has watched the culture-wars as they have gone on for 10+ years; Amazon's not gonna give up so easily. This has not dented for a single second their resolve to push their message, if anything it has only hardened it. It is why it is so important to cling to the lore (as my and other channels do), ignore what's being pumped out and to create new culture/fantasy series.

The guy she chased off when she canceled the Conan shoe went to HBO and made a little show called House of the Dragon. Good call Salkie

the thing about Prime video is is that nobody gets Prime for Prime video, they only get it for 2 day shipping, Video is just a bonus, so they will perpetually just lose money until they find other revenue streams like ads or sponsorships, or making hits at the ever-shrinking box office

For what it’s worth, I saw Air in the theater and thought it was very good. It only had a limited engagement though - not sure it even had a full week, it was just Amazon putting a film in the theater to qualify it for an Oscar and maybe get some buzz for it.

There is a lot of this sort of thinking in the corporate world - at least at some of the bigger ones where there isn't much accountability. Lose a smallish amount of money and you're fired for incompetence, but if you lose massive amount, why you're visionary and get promoted and given more money to lose.

They literally have a road map to billions of dollars and they threw it out the window for modern audiences

Jennifer Salke is like that teenage girl buying closets of designer shoes with Daddy's credit card.

I think Amazon would be very surprised if they offered Prime without video for $20 less at how many subscribers would convert. I know I got it for the free shipping, and I suspect I'm not alone.

This entire situation is an example of what happens when people have too much money, and dont know what to do with it all.

It makes no sense to have Terminal List and Reacher be so good and then have Tolkien and Jordan's stories be desimated by activism.

I want to see Salke and Kathleen Kennedy partner up on a project - whatever they came up with would tank Disney Lucasfilm and Amazon at the same time...

I think it's interesting that in a world where a lot of people have prime for fast shipping and free Twitch subs those same people aren't bothered to watch free shows with budget up to half a billion dollars.

Amazing commentary. Spot on. I’ve been a Prime member for years for the shipping and product subscriptions. I’ve searched hundreds of times through the clunky terrible interface of Prime Video trying to find ANYTHING I would want to watch. Never find anything.

Reacher and terminal list were great shows. What they did to rings of power and wheel of time was a crime

Hollywood is the only industry other than politics where you can literally fail UPWARD.

"Look Amazon, I got this idea for a show. Ok are you ready? Now here me out.... It's a show about nothing."

"admittedly the woman do destory the earth and introduce inter-generational destruction on men, but if anything that just adds to the realism." That line made me laugh so hard .🤣🤣🤣

I believe Jack Ryan, Reacher AND Terminal List were all purchsed by Amazon and weren't projects they did themselves... explains a lot.

I was an Amazon Prime member for years. Not for the video perks but for the free guaranteed 2-day shipping. Then they decided to be an entertainment company and that's when I knew things would go to hell. Sure enough the guarantee of 2-day shipping quietly disappeared and your stuff just started arriving in 3 to 5 days while the membership costs creeped up. Also, the Chinese scam vendors who posed as legit companies were making Amazon a real risky place to shop and there seemed to be no one looking out for the consumer. Rings of Power was the last straw for me. I'm back to shopping in brick & mortar stores and have ZERO interest in any of Amazon's "original" content they are peddling. Oh...and f*

The CEO was giving the nice version in that interview. Behind the scenes he’s probably fuming

There are a few diamonds in the rough when speaking of Amazons streaming properties. The Marvelous Mrs Maisel was there for me after Mad Men ended. They (Amazon) will bring an older series back to watch then take it off of Prime after about a year - I hate that I’ll have to pay for it now that it’s not available on Prime. As far as new content; Amazon needs to stop trying to promote agendas and make something good. More expensive doesn’t mean it’s worth watching.

Even though a Conan show created by Ryan Condal would have likely been a breath of fresh air, the silver lining here is that after Salke shot it down in favor of Wheel of Time, Ryan Condal ended up going to HBO with another project -- House of the Dragon

I actually love this business model and in fact I think they should apply this exact same strategy to customers who purchase physical media too: so for example, any time you order a DVD of an action film, they send you a Lifetime network drama and then if you tell them it isn't what you ordered and you would like an exchange or refund, they send an automated email calling you a toxic bigot.

And that is why there are so many pay per view channels on Amazon Prime. If it wasn't for the delivery stuff I would drop it today. Like Amazon Prime music they are now asking you to pay again for something you've already paid for....

Amazon is losing the goodwill of it's customers day by day, this new CEO is a real bean counter above any other concern. It is no longer innovative and customer driven.

They might like PWB however the fans do not. So what do they do....Hire her again. Fools the lot of them!

There's nothing wrong with making art that nobody wants to see; the problem is when you spend other people's money in the process.

Prime Video in itself is not bad and probably leverages excess datacenter capacity. It would still be an OK addon for Prime subscribers if all they did was show syndicated classics (like Mad Men right now). But no, they had to go and spend billions trying to be HBO when most of us subscribers would probably prefer if they spent that on the wages for their warehouse and delivery workers.

The Peripheral is a crazy good show that I wondered how it got done already. It's been renewed, that's great news. It's good to not scratch every penny once in a while, this is how the big masterpieces in movies and TV got done in most cases.

A big problem at Amazon and Hollywood in general is a cult of un-creativity when it comes to writing. They seem to be of the mindset that hours of explosions and blurred CGI will draw audiences, as opposed to well-developed characters and careful plot elements. So, as you point out, production costs go up while quality continues to decline.

When the Amazon CEO lists Reacher and The Terminal List as the success Prime Video has, that sums things up for me. They know what is truly successful.

When you hire your creatives based on how it improves you ESG score you get a mess like this.

This all reminds me of a shirt I nearly bought "My job is so classified, even I don't know what I am doing. "

Honestly I am shocked that Phoebe Waller-Bridge can have so many bombs and retain some kind of 'it' status as a creator. She should have been working on something remotely like Fleabag, not massive genre franchises.

Most people who watched Rings of Power did it in order to have a more informed opinion on just how bad it was. Once that conclusion is reached, I don't think that many would want to waste any more of their time for the rest of season one, never mind a potential second season.

Wow! Great honest hard-hitting commentary. You earned this subscriber!

Hmm perhaps I should get in on this. Pitch a script to Amazon, have them pay me 20 million a year to "develop" it stating I am a perfectionist and need the time to make it just right for three years then bail. They'd never notice.

The issues seem to be: hiring unqualified storytellers, spreading out responsibility without proper oversight, and then not having a creatively essential employee making decisions. Spending other people's money (with little fear of consequences) is easy Great video, dude. Thank you for what you do.

It's amazing how long it took for that company to ask where their budget went.

I suspect the sleb money is classified as a marketing line item which is tax deductible

Lack of cheap money is going to make all of these companies get back to cutting costs and start actually make sure they are allocating capital efficiently.

love your work disparu keep up the good reviews and exposing idiocracy on the media

The writer/actor strike in Hollywood is the best thing that could have happened. At the very least it puts a pause in the Ent. Industry. Perhaps now some reflection by executives will happen as they look at budgets.

I don't think the money people will buy the argument "the fans are toxic"

I have Amazon Prime. Would I have Prime without video? Absolutely. Would I have Prime Video as a standalone product? Absolutely No. Your point on Prime Video is absolutely spot-on. If they are so confident, they should spin it off as standalone (and offer discount to Prime) and see how badly it does.

“Grossly negligent boss wants to know what happened long after it’s too late.” Better headline.

I use Prime for the free shipping. Their music is awful, I use Spotify, and their video is good enough for most things (usually shows they never thouched). If I had to say one good thing about Amazon, I have to say the best decision Amazon has made was to give Clarkson, Hammond, and May probably more freedom than Amazon would normally allow. Grand Tour was the best thing on Prime, and now Amazon is killing it too. May is saying he can't do much more "Specials", and they killed off the traditional format. Just give me a show of them testing out whatever cars they want. It'll be hillarious. Clarkson, Hammond, and May were the best thing Amazon ever got.

Nothing will ever be worse than the vomitous betrayal that is this Wheel of Time series. The books were sublime, and the show genuinely feels like it was made by people who hated the books expressly for people who never read the books.

BASED ECONOMY!

I was of the understanding that Prime Video was never intended to be profitable. I mean if it became profitable, then Jeff Bezos would be thrilled, but mostly it was a vanity project a la “Look at me, I’m making better shows than HBO!” And Prime has made some great shows, only almost nobody is watching them.

I love when I start the Prime app on my Roku and start scrolling through 50 things that aren't on Prime but are ads for OTHER streaming services you can subscribe too.

companies care about making money? that's shocking..

What cracks me up..is they never prop up or talk about the shows that actually are successful (Reacher, Ryan, Terminal List)

I still cannot understand who is hiring these incompetents, then who is supervising them, and why no one tells them "stop" before the damage is made.

Me: "I'm hung like a horse" Ex-lover: "That's not true" Me: "That's not reflective of any conversation I'm having internally"

It turns out that tempest Galadriel felt inside of her was just financial implosion.

I can't even get started on how important and directly impactful gender is in Wheel of Time and how they absolutely obliterated the story. Gender roles are literally at the center of the book series.

I think one of the big ones (and it definitely turns me off and why I'll never pay for prime) is how you're basically paying for a streaming subscription but Amazon Prime is inconsistent as to what's freely available with the subscription and what you have to rent or purchase on top of the subscription costs... INCLUDING for Amazon Prime originals! how nobody on the board realized that running these services concurrently on the exact same platform is causing confusion and frustration shows how stupidly out of touch they are

Amazon has no feedback mechanism. Customers cannot contact them past some failed purchases. This means they are an echo chamber. Want to have a feature added to their Alexa App? Impossible. Just one example.

If Amazon prime would behave like prime video: customer orders sweets because he likes it and wants it, Amazon sends him vegetables because it thinks it is better for him. The customer stopped ordering because he did not get what he wanted.