Amazon Original Series Betas Now Available on Prime Instant Video

(NASDAQ:AMZN)—The wanna-be entrepreneurs of Betas are back with an eleven-episode season full of apps, coding and debauchery. Amazon is excited to announce the premiere of the first three episodes of the Amazon Studios comedy Betas, which debuts today for all Amazon.com customers. Subsequent episodes will become available every Friday, exclusively for Prime members on Prime Instant Video.

Amazon Original Series Betas Now Available on Prime Instant Video (Photo: Business Wire)

“Betas has been an incredibly fun show to create for customers. We have a stellar cast of comedians and actors, and we think customers are going to enjoy it,” said Roy Price, Director of Amazon Studios. “The chemistry these guys have on set definitely translates to the screen. While their characters are still very much underdogs, it’s easy to find yourself hoping they make it big in techland.”

Starting today, the first three episodes of Betas are available to all Amazon customers for free via Amazon Instant Video on Kindle Fire, iPad, iPhone, Roku, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii, Wii U, hundreds of other connected devices, and online at www.amazon.com/instantvideo. After today, one new episode of Betas will become available every Friday, exclusively on Prime Instant Video, with episode four available on November 29. Customers who are not already Prime members can sign up for a trial at www.amazon.com/primevideos.

Set in the land of Silicon Valley start-ups, Betas, written by Evan Endicott and Josh Stoddard, follows four friends as they attempt to strike it rich with a new mobile social networking app. Joe Dinicol, Karan Soni, Jon Daly, Charlie Saxton, and Maya Erskine star in the show, with Ed Begley Jr. (Arrested Development, St. Elsewhere). Michael Lehmann directs and produces the show along with Executive Producers and Emmy Award winners Alan Freedland and Alan Cohen, and Academy Award nominee Michael London.

Here’s what TV critics are saying about the series:

“It’s a little wild and woolly and more serialized; it’s also more addictive.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“After three episodes, I feel invested in the Betas characters and I’m eager to see where the story takes them.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“The show crackles with witty (and jargony) banter.”—San Jose Mercury News

“…it has a standout character in Nash (Karan Soni), a programming prodigy who digs Christopher Cross and Kenny Loggins tunes…”—San Jose Mercury News

“Betas gets a lot of things right…”—San Francisco Chronicle

“The pilot, created and written by Evan Endicott and Josh Stoddard, was easily the best of the Amazon bunch.”—New York Times

“…clever, sharply observed…”—New York Times

“…the above-passing grades for Betas suggest the service’s incipient efforts have gone two for two. And frankly, for any startup, that’s a pretty impressive debut.”—Variety

“Betas actually has the potential to be a lot more than just a catchword-of-the-day laden satirical look at the ridiculous of the new dot-com era.”—Indiewire

“Betas is a solid tech world comedy.”—Indiewire

Here’s what customers said about the Betas pilot:

• “Too many comedies make their characters just caricatures, and push the comedy over a ledge. Betas is funny and the characters are people I cared about, I want to see them succeed while knowing they’ll commit plenty of self-defeating laugh-your-ass-off mistakes. I want MORE!”
• “The show has a solid cast, an interesting premise and features some veterans of comedy in the pilot. The pilot has some great laughs. Jon Daly is an underrated comedian and I want this show to continue to watch his performance. Excited to see this picked up.”
• “I would definitely like to see more episodes of Beta[s]. It was very funny, and the characters are very likable. If you work with programmers like I do this show seems to capture the different (sometimes socially awkward) personalities perfectly.”
• “Betas is a humorous, well-written take on the struggle to start a revolutionary social networking site. The characters were introduced well and the cast played off each other marvelously. I’d be excited for Amazon to pick this show up.”
• “I loved the pilot, I want to see more! This show has many different characters that you can relate to.”
• “Okay, so the characters are great. The humor is witty, dry and hilarious. The premise for the show is not too complicated and when it ended, I immediately wished that I had another episode to watch. Can’t wait for a full season. Great show!”

Today’s Betas premiere follows the successful premiere of Alpha House, Amazon’s first-ever original series, last Friday, November 15. Amazon announced earlier this week that Alpha House was the most-watched series over the weekend, following its debut. Customers were given the first three episodes of Alpha House to enjoy for free, with the fourth episode becoming available exclusively for Prime members today. Comedy Alpha House follows four senators-turned-unlikely-roommates as they maneuver the outrageous—and sometimes all-too-real—follies of Washington politics.

About Amazon Studios

Amazon Studios launched in 2010 as a new way to develop feature films and episodic series—one that’s open to great ideas from creators and audiences around the world. Anyone can upload a script and will then be notified within 45 days if that script is optioned. Amazon Studios will read and review all submissions and those who choose to make their projects public may also receive feedback from the Amazon Studios community. Recently, Amazon Studios announced 11 new pilots, including: kids pilots Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street, Grid Smasher, Hard-Boiled Eggheads, The Jo B. & G. Raff Show, The Maker Shack Agency, Wishenpoof!; comedy pilots Mozart in the Jungle, The Rebels and Transparent; and drama pilots Bosch and The After. The pilots will be available on Amazon Instant Video and LOVEFiLM early next year for all customers to watch and provide feedback. On November 15, Amazon Studios debuted its first comedy series Alpha House, available exclusively on Prime Instant Video.

Since launch, more than 19,000 movie scripts and 5,000 series projects have been submitted to Amazon Studios. Amazon Studios continues to invite series creators to upload their proposals for drama, comedy and children’s programming at http://studios.amazon.com/getting-started/series or submit them privately via Amazon Studios.

Comprehensive cast and crew information, including bios and filmographies, is available on Amazon’s IMDb (www.imdb.com), the world’s most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Kindle Paperwhite is the world’s best-selling and most advanced e-reader. It features new display technology with higher contrast, the next generation built-in light, a faster processor, the latest touch technology, and exclusive new features designed from the ground up for readers. Kindle, the lightest and smallest Kindle, features improved fonts and faster page turns. The new Kindle Fire HDX features a stunning exclusive 7” or 8.9” HDX display, a quad-core 2.2 GHz processor, 2x more memory, and 11 hours of battery life, as well as exclusive new features of Fire OS 3.0 including X-Ray for Music, Second Screen, Prime Instant Video downloads, and the revolutionary new Mayday button. The all-new Kindle Fire HD includes an HD display, high-performance processor and dual speakers at a breakthrough price.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, www.amazon.cn, www.amazon.it, www.amazon.es, www.amazon.com.br, www.amazon.in, www.amazon.com.mx, and www.amazon.com.au. As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management’s expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment and data center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com’s financial results is included in Amazon.com’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

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