Amazon is merging India’s MX player with a free streaming service
STREAMING SYNERGIES
Amazon India has completed the deal to acquire assets from MX playerincluding its app, and combines it with its AVOD platform MiniTV from Amazon to create a new free streaming service called Amazon MX player. According to Amazon, the combined platform has over 250 million unique users in India.
The service offers original shows such as ‘Aashram’, ‘Dharavi Bank’ and ‘Campus Diaries’, as well as Korean, Mandarin and Turkish shows in local languages. Users can access the service through mobile apps, Amazon’s shopping app, Prime Video, Fire TV and connected TVs.
MX Player started life as a cross-platform media player developed by South Korea’s J2 Interactive. In June 2018, Times Internet, part of India’s Times conglomerate, acquired a majority stake in MX Player for $140 million and relaunched it as a video streamer. It hired former Eros Now COO Karan Bedi as CEO. The Amazon deal is significantly below that value, Variety understands.
Girish Prabhu, head of Amazon Advertising India, said the combination of MX Player’s reach with Amazon’s advertising technology would enable brands to “reach and deliver relevant ads to a very large and engaged base across India.”
Bedi, now head of the new platform, said the merger would allow them to “deliver high-quality entertainment and streaming experiences faster than we could have done independently, while continuing to keep the service free.”
***
Everyone televisionthe organization behind the British free streaming platform Freemade a deal Amazon FireTV. The pact will be integrated into Amazon Fire TV smart TVs and other Fire TV OS-compatible sets for free starting this fall. Freely, which debuted in April 2024, offers free live and on-demand content from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 And Channel 5 without needing a dish or antenna. The platform will be available on Amazon’s Fire TV 2-Series and 4-Series, as well as TCL and Panasonic models running Fire TV OS.
This move expands Freely’s reach, which already includes Hisense, Bush, Toshiba and Panasonic TVs running TiVo OS. More smart TV and OS providers are expected to join the roster.
