Amazon's $7B Entertainment Spend: Hits, Misses, and the Future Under CEO Jassy's Scrutiny

Amazon.Com, Inc AMZN CEO Andy Jassy is scrutinizing its Hollywood studio's ballooning costs and mixed track record with audiences. 

Lately, he sought detailed budget analyses of some of their biggest shows, Bloomberg cites familiar sources.

Jassy is amid a companywide cost-cutting program, shelving at least 37 projects with plans to eliminate at least 27,000 jobs.

In 2022, Amazon spent $7 billion on original shows, licensed programs, and sports, up from $5 billion the year before. 

In the past nine months, Amazon has released at least a half-dozen costly series that failed to deliver. Daisy Jones & the Six, The Power, Dead Ringers, and The Peripheral all cost over $100 million to produce but could not yield the desired results. Even The Rings of Power ($400 million-plus), a show that attracted a large audience, could not deliver.

Despite being one of the most expensive series in TV history, costing over $250 million for one season, Citadel has failed to chart as one of the ten most-watched streaming programs in the U.S. in any week since it debuted, according to Nielsen. 

Jassy is now trying to understand better why specific shows cost what they do, based on conversations with more than a dozen people. NBC Entertainment veteran Jen Salke leads the studio.

Meanwhile, Amazon's biggest competitor in streaming, Netflix Inc NFLX, was churning out new hits every month. However, Salke's spending spree failed to deliver results.

Price Action: AMZN shares traded higher by 0.64% at $131.07 on the last check Wednesday.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons