Amazon, which launched its own studios in 2010, has chosen five series to be first to be broadcast exclusively by the online retailer, following the lead of competitor Netflix.
Netflix has been widely praised for its exclusive releases of House of Cards and more recently Arrested Development, allowing users to download the full series in one go and watch at their own leisure.
Amazon announced yesterday its extensive pilot period had found five shows which have been reviewed by customers of Amazon and LOVEFiLM.
Roy Price, director of Amazon Studios, said: “We are thrilled at the enthusiastic customer response to our first original pilots.
“We built Amazon Studios so that customers could help decide which stories would make the very best movies and TV shows. It’s exciting to see the process in motion, doing exactly what we set out to do. The success of this first set of pilots has given us the push to try this approach with even more shows – this is just the beginning.”
The new shows are called Alpha House, Betas, Annebots, Creative Galaxy and Tumbleleaf and will begin airing on Prime Instant Video later this year.
