Fast Company Reports that Amazon "Massively Inflates its Streaming Library Size"

Fast Company reports that "Amazon Massively Inflates its Streaming Library Size." While Amazon claims 17,000 titles, they only offer 1,745 movies and the rest are TV shows.

Amazon reached that number by counting each episode of a TV series as an individual TVshow. For example, Amazon does not count 24 as one TV show; rather, it counts every episode in all eight seasons toward its library of 17,000 movies and television shows. So, according to Amazon's logic, Kiefer Sutherland stars in 192 TV shows. Amazon counts The X-Files more than 200 times and Grey's Anatomy 170 times. Sure, there's an arguable distinction between all the offshoots of Power Rangers (Mighty Morphin, Dino Thunder, Space Patrol Delta). But by Amazon's figures, Power Rangers-related episodes are counted as about 715 shows in its streaming library--that is, 4.2% of the 17,000 movies and television shows Amazon says it offers. 

Netflix is also mentioned in the article:

Netflix declined to provide the specific tally. "We do not disclose the number of viewables on Netflix," a spokesperson said. "A primary reason is that the title count fluctuates a lot as titles come in and out of window. Additionally, while we do have the biggest streaming library, we don’t want people to measure us by title count. The number of titles does not equate to member happiness or viewing pleasure."

Daniel Choi, the creator of InstantWatcher.com, a website that uses Netflix's API to track streaming movies and TV shows, says the number of movies and TV shows available on Netflix's streaming service is significantly less than 60,000. "According to our count, it's about 13,000," Choi explains, indicating that about 9,500 of those titles are movies. "But there are two different ways of counting. We count all television series as one title each. If you split up the TV series into individual episodes, that count will go up."

via Consumerist.

Comments

[ts]

Not surprising. As the article hints at, NF probably engages in this counting method as well. Amazon is a behemoth who I'm sure will beef up its streaming service as time goes by. It's bigger problem is the vast improvement needed for the UI. It is not at all user friendly and search is clumsy. If someone is already paying for or wants Prime then it's fine as an added bonus. However there was talk of splitting streaming off into a stand alone service. Not sure where they are with that, but major improvements will be needed if it ever happens.

[IMACynic]

If they (Amazon) really wanted to be clear and honest, they would state that they currently offer x,xxx movies and xx,xxx episodes from xxx TV series via their streaming service.

But, let's face it, it is every company's goal to word things in ways that make themselves sound better than they actually are. It's expected. I don't think it's necessarily blatantly deceptive.

Lumping TV shows and movies together is never going to provide a clear understanding of total available entertainment. Most movies range from 80-140 minutes, while a season of a TV show could be 24 episodes averaging about 41 minutes each for a total of 984 minutes. Watching a movie can be a casual, single evening thing, while watching a season (or all seasons) of a show represents a substantial investment of time. Either can be equally enjoyable. It's also easier to squeeze in a TV episode than it is to watch a whole movie when you are short on time.

Both companies allow you to sample the service with a free trial and they also allow some searching and browsing for non-members to see what it available at any given time. There is no way you could say you weren't allowed to make an informed decision about what you are getting.

All of that said, I think both companies could do a much better job of providing options for sorting and searching. Fortunately all of these shortcomings have been covered by third party apps, extensions and websites.

[Robert Emmerich]

Not to defend Amazon, but is that 17,000 number for Prime or for their total streaming library? I've tried Prime twice and it is very limited but they do have a much larger On Demand catalouge. Amazon promotes Prime using the word "thousands" but I didn't see 17k anywhere.
Amazon Instant video shows 50,066 movies and 8,970 tv shows. Prime lowers that to 1751 movies and 1476 tv shows. These numbers are right out there for anyone to see on the top of the left hand column. So unless anyone has Amazon marketing literature w/ the 17k number to call them on this all seems a waste of time.

[IMACynic]

@Robert Emmerich

Amazon's website changes what is presented depending on the customer's history (if you are logged in or based on the data in the cookies on your computer), but if you go to this page when you are not logged in to Amazon, you should see the following near the top of the page:

Amazon Prime: Prime members get unlimited access to over 17,000 Prime Instant Videos at no additional cost. You will have an opportunity to sign up for Prime as part of the PlayStation 3 registration process.

Again, as I stated above, I don't think it's worth getting your knickers in a bunch over this. However, I do think distinguishing between the two types of content is valuable info for consumers.

And I have no idea where that 60,000 number mentioned in the article came from regarding Netflix streaming titles. I questioned that myself when I first saw it referenced in some other news articles. The highest recent estimates I have seen are less than 50,000, even accounting for each "video" separately. But since that didn't come directly from Netflix, we can hardly blame them for it.

[WakkaWakka]

http://thenowhereman.com/netflix/

46458 according to that site.

[Robert Emmerich]

Thanks CYNIC, I stand corrected. I don't think I've been on an Amazon website w/o being logged in since forever. Seems kind of stupid on their part to throw that 17k number out there when anybody who is logged in - and again I am NOT currently a Prime member - would see the 1751 movies and 1476 tv shows without any real effort. So stupid ad, but nice of them to make the real numbers easily accessible. I don't think nf has anything like that, though pretty much everything else they have IS better.

[Judy__]

Not very surprising. The dearth of movies is why I no longer have a streaming account besides the dreadful new interface. And SuddenLink has put small caps on the service in my area [an effective price increase of 1500%] so streaming is impossible now anyway. The screws are tightening on internet access in the US.

[Judy__]

P.S. I dabbled with Amazon for a few days but their interface is mostly useless too.

[chris]

They should either separate the amount of movies vs TV Series, or just add up all the viewable hours. It's not fair to count each episode as a title, but nor is it fair to to count a whole series as 1 title either. I think viewable hours is the most proper way to count it.

[alan]

i stay away from amazon

[Jack]

The problem with Amazon is that a lot of their VOD is *really* low quality when played on a PC. I mean, like lower than VHS quality. I just streamed "Tucker: The Man and His Dream" and I swear it was in a native 320x240. When I blew up to full screen, it looked terrible-- Like it was formatted for Kindle Fire, and nothing else.

I like Amazon a lot, but their VOD is still sub-par, and they need to step it up a bit and give us at least decent 480p quality AT MINIMUM if they want to compete with Netflix.

[Todd]

I agree with counting per episode. Rationale is that some services offer more episodes of a show. Netflix for example has all past seasons of family guy while Hulu has past Seasons plus current ePisodes.

[Galagatron]

I saw this story over the weekend. It also mentioned that Netflix counts the same way but just doesn't use a number (anymore) when advertising its available content.

[Klass Klown]

Netflix Feeling The Heat Of Competition, Could Fall All The Way To $72

Miller did the math and found that 250 GB a month, at 1 hour of streaming per gigabyte, means Reed would have to watch 8.3 hours of video/movies a day. Given that is “obviously unrealistic,” Miller deduces “Mr. Hastings is issuing those comments because he is worried about competition, which is a legitimate concern, as CMCSK [Comcast] charges $4.99/month for streaming, 38% below NFLX’s base price”

[Great Wall]

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[CordCutter]

Klass Klown - Those numbers aren't correct, HD streams use over 1 gb, that also assumes that Reed's house (or anyone for that matter) is only streaming to 1 device at a time. Since cutting the cord I have never been under 250gb.

[Perkins Cobb]

"The number of titles does not equate to member happiness or viewing pleasure."

And, neither does the selection or the image quality.

[Peter Davenport]

Amazon streaming no way compares to Netflix in the value of what you get for $8 a month, unless you use their shipping alot of which I do not. Wider selection of films, classic TV and a much better, organized UI along with a queue on NF. I have both and Amazon has one streaming feature that I think NF would be cool to have and that is the trailer for a film on most titles. Not important though. NF also has many more devices to stream on. Blockbust is no threat to anyone after their last blunder.