Amazon Studios head on taking charge in a new TV age
Amazon will debut its new series “Transparent” on Friday, releasing all ten episodes to Amazon Prime subscribers at the same time.
It’s a dramedy created Jill Soloway of “Six Feet Under” that follows an American family after they find out their father, played by Jeffrey Tambor, is a transgender woman. Critics are calling it Amazon’s breakout hit and even the best new show of the fall.
Roy Price runs Amazon Studios, the online retailer’s original content arm, and he’s quick to say that “Transparent” and their other series make Amazon Prime more desirable to users.
Price says it’s a good time to be in the television industry. That’s where the quality is right now, he says, and great shows can engage viewers more than movies can.
“This is a really exciting space. A lot of people are investing and innovating,” he says. Here are three ways Price thinks TV will change in the next 25 years:
Everything inconvenient is going to be innovated away
Navigating all your options will get way easier, for example. Scrolling through hundreds of channels just doesn’t make sense anymore.
“I’m literally scrolling through — ‘Oh, there’s channel 572,'” he says. “I think we can do better.”
It will work on your time
With the exception of sports and other live events, Price says tuning in at an appointed time or on a show in progress is antiquated.
“It should start when you start,” he says. “You should be the boss … not the schedule.”
You’ll get logical suggestions for the next show to watch
Amazon is awash with data. Amazon Studios’ “pilot season” is crowd-sourced, allowing viewers to pick which shows they want to see made. From television to books to toasters, Amazon is able to suggest new stuff users might like.
But there’s one caveat: “One of the riskiest paths in entertainment is to be derivative and try to do the same thing,” Price says. “That is the path to failure.”
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