Roy Price, vice president of Amazon Studios, stood onstage before a roomful of television critics in Los Angeles about a year ago and instructed them on how to sign up for the retailer’s Prime subscription service, which — along with two-day shipping — offered access to its budding line-up of original series.
“If you are sitting there right now and you are not sure whether you should, subscribe on your phone this minute,” Price pitched. “You can have a free trial for 30 days.”
This year, Price isn’t talking about how to simply find Amazon originals. The conversation has shifted to what you get once you find them: the internet giant’s fast-expanding slate of risk-taking television and film programming.
Not only has Amazon secured Emmy nominations and Golden Globes for its comedy Transparent, about a family whose father comes out as transgender, but it is also pushing ahead with a number of attention-grabbing film and television productions that have set off rounds of digital chatter. The company is working with the polarising filmmaker Woody Allen to write and direct his first television series and has won the rights to Spike Lee’s new film, “Chi-Raq,” about violence on the streets of Chicago.
This week, Amazon said it had reached a deal with Jeremy Clarkson, former host of the BBC’s popular Top Gear motor series, for a new car-themed show. And next week, two new dramatic pilots will make their debuts on the service: Casanova, about the 18th-century playboy, and Sneaky Pete, about a con man who takes on the identity of his cellmate after leaving prison.
“Whenever you are a new service, it takes a minute for everybody to figure out what the deal is,” Price said during a telephone interview.
He rejected the idea that Amazon was becoming a home to misfits or that it was seeking out controversial content. Focusing on one genre or type of tone is too narrow for a broad streaming service, he said.
“We’re not trying to have a formula for shows, except insofar as you want the voices of their time who really are distinctive and people care about,” he added. “The key is to find those people who fans fall in love with and think of as really distinctive and interesting, and empower those people to do their best work.”
Price pegged Clarkson as one of those people.
Amazon’s three-season global deal with Clarkson and his team came together during a series of conversations in Los Angeles and then in Britain after Clarkson’s relationship with the BBC ended in March. Netflix and other programmers were also trying to woo the team to their networks.
Clarkson is a controversial personality, creating potential risks for Amazon. The BBC decided not to renew its contract with him after he was accused of verbally and physically attacking a BBC producer. Clarkson had also drawn criticism for comments that were considered racist.
In response to a question about the possible risks to Amazon, given Clarkson’s past behaviour, Price said Clarkson and his team had made a successful show for years and Amazon was responding to customer demand to see the team return. “You have to look at everything in the great sweep of history and have some context,” Price said. “We are bullish on their being able to create a fantastic show, so we’re not focused on any one particular thing.”
A spokeswoman for Amazon declined to make Clarkson available for an interview. In a statement Thursday about working with Amazon, he said: “I feel like I’ve climbed out of a biplane and into a spaceship.”
A car-themed show is quite different from the comedies, dramas and children’s shows on Amazon’s roster of original series, raising questions about how the streaming service is trying to define its programming during a period when the competition for viewers is fierce. Even as Amazon pours money into new shows — it now has 31, including pilots — its streaming rivals Netflix and Hulu, as well as the traditional TV networks, are ramping up their programming investments.
While some Amazon series, like Transparent, have won critical acclaim, it is hard to tell if they are popular hits. Like Netflix, Amazon does not release audience figures for its programs, and outside measurement firms do not track the viewership of individual shows.
In Hollywood, Amazon has built a reputation among writers, directors and producers as an outlet that supports creative freedom, with Jill Soloway, the creator of Transparent, a vocal proponent.
Still, some in the industry have said Amazon lacks the marketing know-how to sell its programming effectively to audiences and that it can be difficult to build awareness for the shows. Others grumble about Amazon’s nerve-racking pilot process: Series pilots are posted to the Web; Amazon then analyses viewer data and feedback to determine whether to give those programs a green light for further episodes. (While most all Amazon series still go through the pilot process, Amazon has ordered full series for Allen’s and Clarkson’s projects, both scheduled for 2016 releases, without such testing.)
One creator hoping that his project will break through on Amazon is Ben Silverman, chairman of the multimedia studio Electus, who is an executive producer behind “Casanova.”
Silverman said he took “Casanova” to Amazon, hoping that a period drama about the notorious rake would be a good fit.
“Amazon is where 50 Shades of Grey took off with all those ladies who wanted to read a sexy book but were scared to read with the cover,” he said. “Why not do a really sexy period piece?”
