Amazon’s total video and music video expense — TV, movies, and other content — for its Prime Video and other services rose 41% in 2020 to $11 billion, according to the company’s annual report — a level rivaling other digital and legacy media companies.
On a profit-and-loss basis, however, Amazon is still behind the bigger players. It grew 17% to $6.8 billion (from $5.8 billion in 2019) for its video and music content.
By way of comparison, in 2019, Walt Disney spent — on a profit-and-loss basis — $18.7 billion on non-sports video content in 2019; Comcast Corp., $15.9 billion; AT&T, $12.2 billion; Netflix, $9.2 billion; and ViacomCBS, $8.8 billion.
Data here comes from company reports and MoffettNathanson Research.
In that year, Amazon was said to have spent $5.8 billion; Fox Corp. was at $3.8 billion; Discovery $2.6 billion and Apple $2.0 billion and AMC at $1 billion.