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    Amazon cutting several hundred positions across Prime Video and MGM Studios unit

    By SHOOTUpdated:No Comments965 Views
    This March 19, 2018 file photo shows Amazon's Prime Video streaming app on an iPad in Baltimore. Amazon is cutting several hundred positions across its Prime Video and MGM Studios unit. Mike Hopkins, senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, said in a note to employees, Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024, that the staff cuts come as the company identified areas to reduce or discontinue investments while boosting its investment in areas that provide the most impact. AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

    By Michelle Chapman

    --

    Amazon is cutting several hundred positions across its Prime Video and MGM Studios unit.

    Last month Amazon said that Prime Video users would start seeing ads on movies and television shows starting on January 29, setting a date for an announcement it made back in September.

    Prime members who want to keep their movies and TV shows ad-free will have to pay an additional $2.99 per month.

    Mike Hopkins, senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, said in a note to employees that the company is boosting investment in areas with the most impact, while stepping back from others.

    Amazon has cut thousands of jobs after a hiring surge during the pandemic. In March, Amazon announced that it planned to lay off 9,000 employees. That was on top of the 18,000 employees the tech giant said that it would lay off in January 2023.

    Job cuts are occurring elsewhere in the company this week.

    Twitch, the video game streaming platform acquired by Amazon a decade ago for close to $1 billion, is laying off more than 500 employees as the company tries to turn the tremendously expensive division profitable.

    Twitch CEO Dan Clancy in an email to employees said that even with cost cuts and growing efficiency, the platform "is still meaningfully larger than it needs to be given the size of our business."

    "For some time now the organization has been sized based upon where we optimistically expect our business to be in 3 or more years, not where we're at today," Clancy wrote.

    Departing employees at Amazon Prime will receive a separation payment and other benefits like job placement support.

    In May Amazon said that it would distribute its original films and TV shows, like "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," to media outlets outside its Prime Video service for the first time.

    That content would be licensed via a new unit called Amazon MGM Studios Distribution, which expands the number of titles currently offered by Hollywood studio MGM. In 2022, the e-commerce-behemoth-turned-media-giant closed its acquisition of MGM — which houses more than 4,000 film titles and 17,000 TV episodes — for $8.5 billion.

    Michelle Chapman is an AP business writer

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    Tags:AmazonAmazon MGM StudiosPrime Video



    NFL sees increased viewership for wild-card round, eyes more for divisional games

    Friday, January 16, 2026
    San Francisco 49ers wide receivers Demarcus Robinson, left, and Kendrick Bourne take the field before an NFL football game against the Seattle Seahawks in Santa Clara, Calif., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Jed Jacobsohn)

    After double-digit increases in its regular-season and wild-card playoff round ratings, the NFL is looking for another large bump in ratings during this weekend's division round. The league and Nielsen said last weekend's six wild-card games averaged 32 million viewers, a 13% jump from last year. It was also the most-watched opening weekend of the NFL playoffs since the field expanded to 14 teams in the 2020 season. Overall, it was the most-watched wild-card round since the 2015 season and the fifth highest since average viewer numbers started being tracked in 1988. Five of the games saw increases compared to the same time frames a year ago while the sixth game was even. The regular season averaged 18.7 million viewers per game, a 10% increase. It also was the second-highest average on record. Some of the increase can be attributed to a change in the way viewers are counted. Nielsen began using its Big Data + Panel methodology for all events last September with the start of the current television season. Earlier this year, Nielsen began measuring out-of-home viewers for all states but Hawaii and Alaska, along with including data from smart TVs along with cable and satellite set-top boxes. Nielsen previously measured only the top 44 media markets, which covered 65% of the country. "It was a great weekend of football all around," said Hans Schroeder, the NFL's executive vice president of media distribution. "Every year, there's a new set of stars and players emerging. You have (New England's) Drake Maye, who's a potential MVP and on the other end you have an established star like (Los Angeles Rams QB) Matthew Stafford, who may be the other MVP favorite playing a heck of a game with the fourth-quarter comeback." Last year's four divisional... Read More

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