Amazon Merges India’s MX Player into Free Streaming Service

STREAMING SYNERGIES

Amazon India has completed the deal to acquire assets of MX Player, including its app, and is combining it with its AVOD platform Amazon miniTV to create a new free streaming service called Amazon MX Player. The merged platform has over 250 million unique users in India, according to Amazon.

The service offers original shows like “Aashram,” “Dharavi Bank” and “Campus Diaries,” as well as Korean, Mandarin and Turkish shows dubbed in local languages. Users can access the service through mobile apps, Amazon’s shopping app, Prime Video, Fire TV and connected TVs.

MX Player began life as a cross-platform media player developed by South Korea’s J2 Interactive. In June 2018, Times Internet, part of India’s giant Times conglomerate acquired a controlling stake MX Player for $140 million and re-launched it as a video streamer. It hired former Eros Now COO Karan Bedi as CEO. The Amazon deal is considerably below that value, Variety understands.

Girish Prabhu, head of Amazon Advertising India, said that the combination of MX Player’s reach with Amazon’s advertising technology would enable brands to “reach and deliver relevant advertising to a very large and engaged base across India.”

Bedi, now head of the new platform, said the merger would allow them to “offer high-quality entertainment and streaming experiences faster than we could have done independently, while continuing to keep the service free.”

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Everyone TV, the org behind U.K. free streaming platform Freely, has struck a deal with Amazon Fire TV. The pact will see Freely integrated into Amazon Fire TV smart TVs and other Fire TV OS-enabled sets starting this fall. Freely, which debuted in April 2024, offers free live and on-demand content from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 without requiring a dish or aerial. The platform will be available on Amazon’s Fire TV 2-Series and 4-Series, as well as TCL and Panasonic models sporting Fire TV OS.

The move expands Freely’s reach, which already includes Hisense, Bush, Toshiba, and Panasonic TVs with TiVo OS. More smart TV and OS providers are expected to join the roster.