Amazon.com, Original Programming | featured news

Fourteen pilot shows - including Alpha House and Zombieland - are to be put to the public vote on Lovefilm and Amazon.com. Viewers can submit feedback influencing which shows get made into full series. The 14 shows are made by independent production companies and produced by Amazon Studios, the film and series production arm of Amazon.

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.