It’s Not TV, It’s Freevee!

Proving once again that naming streaming services is not its strong suit, Amazon announced that its FAST service, first known as Freedive and, more recently, as IMDbTV, would henceforth be known as Freevee. (With the “v” in lower case so as to ensure a significant number of people will call it “Freeve”) 

The company is also dialing up the number of originals on the service, adding in projects from somewhat well known talents like Brenda Song (London Tipton on Suite Life) and Greg Garcia (My Name Is Earl.) 

Which is all great and wonderful, and in another service it would be a huge win. (Well, the original series part anyway.) 

But Amazon seems almost embarrassed of Freevee, treating it like some weird uncle kept locked in the attic.

To wit: a friend of mine who works for one of the trades has told me that at least once a month he gets a “tip” that Amazon is now running ads on Prime. At which point he needs to explain that no, it’s not a ghost, it’s just weird Uncle Rupert.

Or in this case, that it’s not Prime, it’s IMDbTV.

For those of you who have not experienced this, what happens is that when you search for a show on Amazon, you will often be greeted with two options: the TVOD (transactional video on demand) option on Prime that says “Rent this episode of The Munsters for $1.99” and the AVOD (advertising-supported video on demand) option that says “Or watch it free with ads!”

Sometimes it adds “on IMDbTV” but mostly it doesn’t, and when you click on the “watch with ads” button, the show starts playing and you have no idea that you’ve left Prime and gone to IMDbTV. (Or Freevee as the case will soon be.)

Amazon — which has no shortage of ways to promote things like Whole Foods’ delivery service, the latest Alexa device and Things You Left In Your Cart But Clearly Intended To Buy — does little to nothing to promote IMDbTV. 

It’s featured on Fire TV, but the two services have such different brand names the connection might not be all that obvious, unlike say, Roku and The Roku Channel or Samsung and Samsung TV Plus.

It’s curious in that IMDbTV is actually one of the better FAST services, with an array of unique programming, cheeky category titles (“Short-A** Movies) and a deep enough movie selection. It does not have linear-like channels yet, but I would bet those are coming soon, or at least soon enough.

So why the Crazy-Uncle-In-The-Attic routine?

I suspect that Amazon does have a family secret it don’t want a whole lot of people to know about: it runs advertising.

Advertising that is targeted based on what you’ve bought on Amazon, browsed on Amazon, put in your cart on Amazon, bought using your Amazon ID… you get the picture.

It’s the sort of thing that might give people pause if they knew about it. Or, at the very least, might result in a much tweeted about article in Slate or Vice or even Mother Jones about how Amazon is selling your personal data to advertisers… an article that would need to be the subject of some serious damage control.

So better to let it fly under the radar while Amazon figures this whole thing out. Which is its MO in general when it comes to advertising. As in, I suspect there are very few people in the industry who fully understand how Amazon sells its IMDbTV inventory let alone how its measured.

And the reason I suspect that this is all just temporary, is that realistically there is so much more Amazon can do to juice up the value of its advertising. Take something as basic as making sure that people who see an ad for Starbucks on Freevee had some Starbucks coffee products featured in their “Based on your Interests” feed the next time they log on to Amazon. 

Or an offer, at the end of select TV spots, to use the code “BEZOS10” to get 10% off whatever is being advertised if you buy it on Amazon. It could even throw in a QR code.

Point being there’s a whole world of ways Amazon can boost the value of its advertising while collecting even more data, and chances are it’s just waiting for all that DC regulatory hullaballoo to die down so it can get back to business.

That alone is enough to keep interest in IMDbTV/Freevee high, especially from brands who are not averse to using TV as a direct response vehicle of sorts, rather than just a branding or image enhancer.

So there’s that. Then there’s Amazon’s place in the greater streaming wars. Or lack of place, to be exact.

Few people are subscribing to Amazon because of its TV programming. It’s a lucky strike extra. Nothing against Amazon—I’m a big fan of its Prime video programming and I’d likely subscribe if it had a separate app — but the main reason, maybe even the only reason, that the yearly fee is non-negotiable is the free two-day delivery. Which often translates to free one-day delivery, even out here in the swamps of Jersey.

That’s like Amazon having a trust fund. A really big great-granddaddy-started-IBM type trust fund.

It means you get to be an artist but you never have to worry about actually, you know… making money off of it, because that part is covered.

Which is exactly what Amazon gets out of the free two-day subscription deal.

Yes, it wants its Prime programming to be great and award-winning and a big reason it’s able to obtain and retain customers.

But at the end of the day, if that doesn’t happen, it’s not that big a deal, certainly not the way it is for the other Flixes. Because chances are high that few, if any, of Amazon’s subscribers are going to cancel their free two-day delivery service. Even if they think the Prime programming sucks.

Freevee is in a similar boat. If it gets people to tune in and spend more time with Amazon, all the better. If it lets Amazon test out its nascent advertising adventure, better still.

But if it never catches on and winds up with just a handful of viewers? Well that works too. Just chalk it up to “learnings” and move on to the next new new thing.