Rishabh Parashar
Amazon confirms on Thursday that the E-Commerce giant has sealed the deal with MGM Studios for $8.5bn. The E-commerce giant made this move to attract more customers to its streaming services Amazon Prime Videos.
Amazon is looking forward to welcoming the employees of MGM and with this deal, in place, the Amazon Prime Videos has gained the whole collection of movies by the MGM Studios. From the likes of James Bond, Rocky and RoboCop, Amazon Prime owns them.
Amazon looking to add the MGM Studios collection
With this buy, Amazon will add about 25,000 Hours catalogue on Amazon Prime Videos, This will attract more and more viewers. With many big names like Rocky and James Bond under the belt surely this buy was to bring down the completion to other competitors like Disney+ and Netflix
Amazon did face some issues with this deal. But on Thursday they confirmed all the legalities are taken care of and all the regulatory hurdles were also taken care of. With both European Union antitrust regulators and Federal Trade Commission both giving the green light the deal was set.
According to Amazon, MGM`s staff will join the organization of Mike Hopkins, senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon Studios.
“We welcome MGM employees, creators, and talent to Prime Video and Amazon Studios, and we look forward to working together,” he said in a statement.
Amazon up for a Competition
With the competition building in hard from all the direction for the streaming service Amazon Prime Videos, this deal was a booster of sorts. The MGM Studios has more than 4,000 films and 17,000 episodes of TV to its name, along with 180 Oscars and 100 Emmy Awards. MGM movies include classics such as Thelma & Louise, The Silence of the Lambs, The Magnificent Seven and Raging Bull.
The takeover is Amazon’s biggest acquisition since it agreed to buy Whole Foods in 2017 for $13.7 billion. In 2020 and 2021, alone, Amazon spent a combined $24 billion on video and music for its streaming services.
