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Late last year, Amazon’s free streamer, IMDb TV, started pushing into original programming with the premiere of Alex Rider and a handful of unscripted series. Now, the streamer is making an even bigger original content investment as it looks to draw bigger audiences and advertisers, and is rounding out its content offering with unscripted series and traditional daytime television fare.
IMDb TV, whose programming was at the forefront of Amazon’s first-ever NewFronts presentation Monday afternoon, aims to replicate the various tastes and audiences that make up the tableau of linear TV. That’s reflected in a jam-packed new line-up of upcoming programming, which includes the new crime drama series Leverage: Redemption, which will debut in July; High School, an adaptation of the Tegan and Sara memoir of the same name; and On Call, a half-hour police drama from legendary producer Dick Wolf.
It’s not just scripted series: IMDb TV has also greenlit a second season of the basketball docuseries Top Class: The Life and Times of the Sierra Canyon Trailblazers, and has given the greenlight to three other unscripted series, including one headed by country music singer and songwriter Luke Bryan and another starring Bravo house flipper extraordinaire Jeff Lewis.
Five more series are in development at the free streamer, the company said.
‘A little bit of everything for everyone’
“We talk a lot about being a modern broadcast network, and we want to do a little bit of everything for everyone. We are daypart-agnostic,” Lauren Anderson, IMDb TV’s co-head of content and programming, told Adweek ahead of Amazon’s Monday afternoon presentation. “For us, we really saw an opportunity as a streaming service that is not just about primetime-only-type programming, but really about programming shows that we believe audiences really want to watch.”
The new programming lineup from IMDb TV was part of a broad pitch to advertisers Monday in which Amazon emphasized its reach across households through its tableau of streaming services platforms.
According to the company, Amazon’s over-the-top advertising business, which includes IMDb TV, live sports on Amazon Prime Video, Twitch and Fire TV (including both Amazon’s News app and third-party apps), has reached more than 120 million monthly viewers—more than six times the reach it had just a year ago.
The growth follows trends from other streaming services and platforms, many of whom have come to the NewFronts in an effort to capture more of marketers’ advertising budgets that may have traditionally been earmarked for linear TV.
Amazon Studios-quality content, without the Prime subscription
With IMDb TV, the company is looking to tap into viewers interested in watching the kind of original programming that Amazon Studios is known for making, who may not already have a subscription to Prime. More than 60% of viewers on the service are between the ages of 18-49, a key demo for many advertisers, and four in 10 IMDb TV users don’t subscribe to a pay-cable service, making them elusive through more traditional marketing methods.
“As cord-cutters and cord-nevers embrace all the great things about streaming, it’s not a rejection of the kind of content that you see on broadcast cable,” said Ryan Pirozzi, IMDb TV’s co-head of content and programming. “We saw an opportunity to really believe in that space as a differentiator and compliment other things that Amazon’s doing, like Prime Video.”
Over the course of Amazon’s 35-minute digital presentation, Schitt’s Creek star Catherine O’Hara shepherded media buyers and agency viewers through the company’s lineup of services, including ad opportunities on livestreaming platform Twitch and on Amazon Fire TV devices, which are used by one in three connected TV viewers.
As Amazon doubles down on free original programming, it is also looking for ways to make Prime Video more attractive to audiences—and accessible to advertisers. Just hours before its Monday presentation, Amazon Prime Video said that it would bring the NFL’s Thursday Night Football exclusively to its platform beginning next year, a history-making deal to bring the football league’s content exclusively to a digital streaming platform.
The presentation, which also included nods to livestreaming platform Twitch and Amazon Fire TV devices, capped off a streaming-heavy first day of the 2021 NewFronts, during which several other streaming services, including Tubi and Crackle Plus, emphasized their investment in original programming and the benefits of buying ads on streaming and on connected TVs.
