On Wednesday, Amazon said that it is all set to buy MGM Studios in a deal worth $8.45bn, which marks its boldest ever move in the entertainment sector so far.
This is the second-largest Amazon acquisition, after the company’s Whole Foods acquisition in 2017 for $13.7bn.
Amazon said that it expects to leverage the storied filmmaking accomplishments and the broad-ranging catalog consisting of 17,000 television shows and 4,000 movies to help support Amazon Studios, along with its television and movie division.
The deal focuses on Amazon’s willingness for spending immensely in order to stay competitive in present video streaming market. Disney, Netflix, Amazon and the other streaming service providers have been trying to boost their content library to get more subscribers, spending billions to creating original programming and licensing content.
Media juggernauts, simultaneously, have undergone more consolidation to gain a better scale and be on the same page as Netflix and Amazon. Disney’s $43bn deal for merging with the WarnerMedia, is the recent indication of that.
Amazon, since long, has been looking for opportunities to make huge investments in video streaming content in an attempt to get more Prime memberships that has now surpassed 200mn worldwide. It has invested $11bn on music and video content in 2020, a rise from the $7.8bn it spent in 2019.