Tv Show, Streaming Service | featured news

Amazon is letting viewers help choose its new lineup of TV shows, scuttling a secretive, wasteful process once reserved for Hollywood taste-makers... There used to be just one way for getting shows on TV. Networks would spend tens of millions of dollars ordering scripts and shooting pilots and then show the fruits of their labor to focus groups. A small group of executives would cherry-pick a few promising shows to put on TV, hoping they'd be a hit with bigger audiences. The process was unscientific, expensive, and often didn't work. It's still how most of the industry operates today.

Amazon.com Inc unveiled a new effort to develop original comedy and children's TV shows to distribute over the company's video streaming service.

The loss of its contract with Starz for movies may hurt Netflix less than originally thought, because more than half of its streaming audience are watching TV series.

Amazon.com said it struck a deal with Fox to offer online video-streaming of the company's movies and television shows.

Hulu is close to renewing its deal for TV shows from its media-company owners in a move that would secure the future of the online video site but could delay Hulu's access to some shows for its free service.

Netflix will start streaming the hit TV series "Mad Men" in a multi-year deal the online movie rental company struck with Lions Gate, the show's producer....

A show about the 60's and 70's, made in the late 80's and early 90's, and now blasting into the second decade of the 21st century. It's been quite a trip for Kevin Arnold and friends, but now, he can stream right into your living room.

Netflix has evolved as a service that has been more or less complementary to traditional pay-TV business, flourishing in monetizing older content and offering it at minimal prices to customers. While there was skepticism around the model, it has proven immensely successful (at least until now) and has led to rapid subscriber gains. However, Netflix is now stepping on pay-TVs toes and a larger battle appears to be brewing as Netflix has successfully acquired its first original TV series, House of Cards, by outbidding HBO.

Hulu reportedly will introduce a subscription plan as soon as May 24, which would cost $10 per month for access to anything older than the last five episodes of popular TV shows, according to the Los Angeles Times.