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Freevee is on the hunt for broad-appeal programming in four particular areas as it plans to grow its international footprint in 2023.

By Jordan Pinto

In a period when the long-term economics around SVoD have been questioned, Amazon’s advertising-supported streaming service Freevee has emerged as one of the most compelling propositions in a market that has fully embraced AVoD.

The platform, previously known as IMDb TV until it was rebranded in the first half of 2022, occupies an increasingly important position within Amazon’s streaming business, nestled alongside its SVoD product Prime Video.

Execs have previously said the goal is for Freevee, which is currently available in the UK, US and Germany, to be a “modern broadcaster,” programming content that appeals to a wide swath of audience tastes.

Lauren Anderson, head of AVoD original content and programming at Amazon Studios, expanded on the commissioning strategy at C21’s Content London event in late 2022.

Broadly, the service is looking to commission “big-tent” content in four main areas across scripted and unscripted: crime and investigation; young-adult and coming-of-age; pop culture and music; and home and family Anderson said that one of the key programming decisions taken by Freevee is to be “day part-agnostic,” meaning its shows are intended to span both traditional daytime pr p ogramming and primetime.

“One of the things we saw is that the majority of programmes made for streaming were what you would consider ‘traditional’ primetime content, whether that was a drama or comedy, and overwhelmingly scripted. So from the very y beginning we wanted to be day partagnostic,” she said.

To that end, one n of its key titles is Judy y Justice, a spin-off from the longrunning courtroom reality series Judge

Judy, fronted by family court judge Judith Sheindlin. In its first season, it was Freevee’s most-watched show to date, with Amazon revealing in April 2022 that the series had racked up over 40 million hours of watch time. The first two seasons featured more than 120 episodes combined.

The show has spawned a second spin-off, Tribunal, which also sees judges Patricia DiMango and Tanya Acker and former district attorney Adam Levy collectively adjudicating real cases.

To begin with, Freevee has made a clear decision to lean on known IP to attract audiences. The first original show commissioned by the AVoD platform was Leverage: Redemption, a revival of the action-crime drama Leverage, which ran on US network TNT for five seasons from 2008 to 2012.

Freevee ordered the show after it licensed the original and found audiences “watching it in droves,” said Anderson. “The fanbase for Leverage is so rabid. They show up all the time and are so active on social, so it was exciting for us to be able to bring that show back.”

The revival of Leverage has “created a bit of a template for us,” said Anderson, with Freevee subsequently commissioning a spin-off from the long-running Prime Video series Bosch, which had been one of the SVoD service’s defining originals.

Without question, though, Freevee’s most headlinegrabbing green light to date was its decision to rescue Australian soap Neighbours, after it was dropped by Paramount-owned UK terrestrial Channel 5.

Anderson said the decision to board the show illustrates Freevee’s dedication to serving audiences in specific local markets. “That was very much about understanding that that show is such an institution inside the UK. It wasn’t necessarily a play for every other territory,” she said. “It’s about making sure we’re obsessing over our territories and not just programming in a broad way without understanding what people want in each territory.”

Anderson said soap operas are of significant interest to Freevee in the future, as they “allow for constant engagement with a service.”

Amazon also did a deal with the show’s producer and distributor Fremantle to acquire thousands of episodes from previous seasons, with the goal of launching several

FAST channels dedicated to older and newer episodes of Neighbours

Even though Neighbours wasn’t “originally built” for streaming, Anderson said soaps are a “perfect fit” within an AVoD ecosystem. “We’ll be making a lot of shows that fit within that model and that framework.”

In addition to Neighbours, Freevee has also been in the market to rescue more traditional drama fare, including American Rust, which was cancelled after its first season by Showtime earlier this year. Following that cancellation, Freevee jumped in to rescue the series, commissioning a second season and acquiring the rights to S1.

Freevee has not just been leaning on existing TV properties, however. In addition to commissioning shows with pre-existing brand recognition, the platform is also looking to greenlight unproven programming, including the coming-of-age dramedy Beyond Black Beauty, about an equestrian with Olympic aspirations whose journey is suddenly halted when her mother uproots the family.

It also recently debuted its comingof-age series High School, about twins who struggle to find their own identities.

Unscripted is also a key part of its commissioning strategy, said Anderson, with its roster of titles including culinary competition series America’s Test Kitchen: The Next Generation, family competition series Play-Doh Squished and home-renovation series Hollywood Houselift with Jeff Lewis, the latter of which has been renewed for a second season.

FAST channels are another key aspect of Freevee’s overall offering. “The way we built and developed Freevee was that our original content interacted with our licensed content, which interacted with our FAST content,” said Anderson. She added that the standalone FAST channels will use licensed programming to get consumers excited about specific shows or categories of content, which will, in turn, drive them to Freevee originals.

While its greenlight and renewal decisions are backed by significant amounts of data, Anderson said creative instinct will always trump data. “At the end of the day, hits are made by creators with a singular vision and you can’t predict what an audience wants to watch in that exact way. For us, it’s always about leaning into vision, passion and storytelling.”

Anderson would not comment on the specific budget levels for Freevee originals, but said they are commensurate with budgets on the traditional television and SVoD side. “We have the kinds of budgets that make sure the shows are great,” she said.

“Because streaming was so focused on SVoD for so long, I believe there was a bit of a stigma around adsupported and what it meant to have great content on the ad-supported side. That was always so confusing to me, because until just a few years ago, everyone’s favourite show was, for the most part, ad-supported.

“Part of it has been about making sure people understand that creativity isn’t blocked by having ads, and our budgets aren’t blocked by having ads.”

While Freevee is currently available in the US, UK and Germany, it is widely expected that the service will look to expand into new markets in 2023. Anderson said there are “always plans” to grow the service’s geographical footprint but could confirm nothing at the time.

Freevee’s relatively narrow international footprint is an advantage in some cases, though, as it means the platform does not take all global rights.

Leverage: Redemption, for example, is on Freevee in the US and UK, while Dean Devlin’s Electric Entertainment handles sales in other territories. “We are open to every model,” said Anderson, adding that producers are encouraged to think creatively about the types of deals that can be made.

Anderson doubled down on the notion that Freevee is a broad service, catering to the widest range of audience tastes. “We want a lot of eyeballs and we want a wide variety of the audience, so we aren’t just programming to one specific customer, we’re programming to everyone. So it’s important that demographically we’re representing everyone,” she said. “That’s across all sorts of things –region, age, ethnicity, gender. We want to make sure it’s as broad as possible.”