Amazon Movie And TV Streaming Proposed, May Be Coming Soon

With a brand new Apple event just about to take place tomorrow, we're a bit surprised to hear talk of another company thinking about doing something we've already heard Apple talking over, in their own way. This time around, according to sources familiar with the matter, it's Amazon, and they are aiming at taking a stab at Netflix, along with TV in general, in making an online streaming service available to its customers.

According to the new report, it seems that several drafts of a proposal have made their way around corporations. These include General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal, Viacom Inc., and Time Warner Inc., amongst others. The proposals have been going out over the last couple of weeks, if not months, and have outlined a way for a Web-based subscription service to work. Considering Amazon already sells some single episodes of popular TV shows for about $1.99 each, and renting/owning movies from Amazon On Demand is pretty simple, this new streaming platform would make quite a bit of sense.

The sources go on to say that the subscription service would not only be available on the Web proper, but also on devices that already play TV shows and movies that Amazon already sells. That would include Microsoft's Xbox 360, for example, and some Internet-connected TVs. And, if you're an Amazon Prime member, you would be immediately able to start streaming the service, without extra cost. That would give Amazon a pretty big bulk of customers right off the bat.

The sources say that Amazon wants to launch the online streaming service by the holiday season, this year, but there's no word on whether or not that's actually going to happen. It seems that it's still unclear if any media giants are actually going to participate in the proposal. There's a chance we get to hear from Apple on their own intentions, especially regarding Apple TV/iTV, so stay tuned. We're sure this will get interesting soon enough.

[via Wall Street Journal]