Amazon turned industry heads in April when it let viewers pick which of its original pilots should make it to series. But its latest move builds in customer-influence right from the beginning of the creative process.
As revealed by All Things D, the e-commerce pioneer is recruiting its "best customers" to its Amazon Preview program, to review concepts, storyboards, test movies and television pilots, and report back to Amazon with suggestions for improvements.
The pilot program proved brutal for some of the entrants. One of the survivors, Alpha House, a political comedy starring John Goodman and written by Garry Trudeau, debuts on November 15. The first few episodes will be available to everyone on Amazon's Instant Video platform. But after that, only subscribers to Amazon Prime, the two-day shipping service that comes with access to video streaming, will be able to watch.
Streaming competitor Netflix eschews pilots altogether, a move championed by many of its creators ("I don't want to make a sales tool, I want to make a show," says Jenji Kohan, creator of Netflix's hit Orange Is the New Black).
But it's more than process that separates Amazon originals from Netflix. Find out what's behind Amazon's content strategy in the latest episode of "The Content Brief" from Freshwire below.
And learn about how the digital revolution is impacting reading in last week's episode here.