This week, Amazon quietly rebranded its Freevee channels into Amazon Prime Video Channels on Fire TVs, sparking a new round of fear that Amazon will shut down its free ad-supported streaming service, Freevee.
This was first spotted by AFTVnews, who noticed that the live guide of all the free channels on the Fire TV, previously called Freevee Channels, has been rebranded to Prime Video Channels. AFTVnews went on to speculate that this could be a sign of the end for Amazon’s free ad-supported service.
This comes after Adweek reported earlier this year that Amazon’s Freevee service would be shut down in the coming months, citing similar business models between Freevee and Prime Video, which now has ads. Freevee is a free, ad-supported service available to anyone, even without a Prime subscription. Amazon quickly denied the report, but fear has lingered since.
Freevee’s fate has been in question after Amazon introduced ads to Prime Video. Having two ad-supported streaming services potentially confuses advertisers and splits the focus of the sales team.
Free ad-supported streaming services (FASTs) have become one of the fastest-growing segments in the world of cord-cutting. This move toward FASTs has resulted in a growing number of companies trying to cash in by launching their own services. This has also led to some casualties, with Redbox shutting down and Stirr being sold to new owners. The question now has been how many free ad-supported services the market can support.
Cord Cutters News has reached out to Amazon for comment and will update this story as we learn more.