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Amazon Prime News: Free On Sprint And ‘The Night Manager’ Exclusive [Video]

By Nick Younker
Published on: 07:43 PST, May 13, 2016

Amazon Prime’s fierce market presence has been so dominating here lately that even other large communications companies like Sprint want to ride their coattails to success. It might even be worth mentioning that Amazon Prime is poised to overtake the streaming market’s top platform, Netflix, in the near future.

With streaming originals like Transparent, The Man in the High Castle, Grace and Frankie, and Alpha House to back it up, Amazon Prime is in no short supply of content for their subscribers. But that also includes exclusive access to certain shows that have come from the broadcast and cable networks, like Hannibal, Under the Dome, and The Sopranos.

Now that Amazon Prime has made such a big impact on the streaming, retail, and music market, the online giant is attracting other major companies like Sprint that want to partner with Amazon to attract new customers for their own business, according to Engadget.

The first one on that list is Sprint, who is offering customers an exclusive 12-month membership to Amazon Prime if they sign for their “XXL Option” package. Sprint gives those subscribers 40 GB of data with unlimited talk and text. By offering 12 months of Amazon Prime for those who sign up, that just goes to show you how popular the streaming service is in the market.

But that is not the only reason Amazon Prime is making waves in the market recently, as reported by Variety. Their service has just negotiated a deal that will give the streaming platform exclusive access to the show The Night Manager, which will mark its first major partnership with an AMC property.

https://youtu.be/3ZfEyX-QQ5A

The highly coveted and well-produced shows on AMC networks have been mostly exclusive to Netflix, including The Walking Dead, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and Halt and Catch Fire.

The Night Manager is the first AMC show that will be exclusive to Amazon Prime, but it will only be in a few major territories. Those include the U.S., U.K., and Japan, all three of which hold a lion’s share of the global market’s most coveted subscriber lists.

The Night Manager features the return of Hugh Laurie to American television, who is joined on the show by Tom Hiddleston, Olivia Colman, and Tom Hollander.

The move by Amazon Prime to acquire the exclusive rights to The Night Manager marks a significant improvement to what they have to offer, which is something Netflix has routinely beat them at in terms of originals and exclusives.

Brad Beale, the VP of digital video content acquisition for Amazon, was quite enthusiastic about what Amazon Prime Video is doing now with its acquisitions.

“We’re focused on providing our customers with compelling, must-see series’ that raise the bar for entertainment,” Beale said.

But Amazon Prime’s aggressive moves in the streaming video market have also meant that on the backend of their exclusive offers for subscribers, another company is trying to move in on its market share.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Wal-Mart is trying to compete head-on with Amazon Prime by testing out a new shipping membership for its customers, which is the same thing that Amazon Prime offers – two-day shipping.

Given that Wal-Mart has all the brick and mortar infrastructure already, the new service may prove to be a success. Amazon Prime still lacks the physical infrastructure, but their service still delivers on time with two-day guarantees for members of Prime.

Wal-Mart is said to be in the initial stages of this new offering, and there has been no word yet as to what the service membership will cost per year or per month. There is also going to be the lack of extra perks, which Amazon Prime offers to their members. That includes the streaming video buffet, Prime Music, and others.

[Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images]

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