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What do the Golden Globe wins really mean for Amazon.com?

January 16, 2015Written by Tom Ryan

"To Amazon, my new best friend."

Those words were spoken by Jeffrey Tambor on Sunday after he took home the best actor award at the Golden Globes for "Transparent," a dark comedy produced by Amazon. The series also won for best television comedy.

Amazon followed its first Globe win on Tuesday by signing Woody Allen to write and direct his first television series.

To some, the coups are a sign that Amazon is becoming a bigger threat to Netflix and Hulu, which are also both aggressively investing in original content.

Edie Falco, who stars in Showtime's "Nurse Jackie," remarked to reporters at the Globes, "The stuff that I've been watching lately has been on [streaming services] like Amazon Prime, where I used to go to get my toilet paper."

Indeed, a few articles explored what it means for sales of toilet paper and other items on Amazon.com.

Prime Instant Video is included in the company's $99-a-year Prime service, which offers two-day shipping at no extra charge. Also offering unlimited music and photo storage and free e-book rentals, Prime is believed to be the primary tool Amazon uses to hook consumers. After joining Prime, users spend two to three times more, according to estimates.

Last year, many pointed to the bundling of content with shipping perks as the way Amazon would encourage customers to accept hikes in membership fees.

"Prime isn't just a two-day shipping program anymore," Brad Stone and Joshua Brustein wrote for Bloomberg BusinessWeek last March after the Prime subscription was raised from $79 to $99. "It's become a varied loyalty program that draws customers in and seeks to convert them into Amazon addicts."

Amazon also has a hit with Garry Trudeau's Washington satire "Alpha House," now in its second season, and last month released another highly praised comedy, "Mozart in the Jungle." Joining other coming projects with acclaimed directors including Steven Soderbergh, Ridley Scott and Carlton Cuse, the signing of Mr. Allen was another sign of Amazon's commitment to original programing.

"Amazon needed to prove they were a serious player in television because there was always kind of a question mark of how real are they," Eric Deggans, the TV critic at National Public Radio, told the Globe and Daily Mail. "They won two Golden Globes and with this now, they're stepping up."

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