Amazon has announced that its total expenses for TV, film and music content spending for 2022 was $16.6 billion – up 28% from $13 billion in 2021. Amazon reportedly disclosed the information in its annual report filed with the SEC Friday according to Variety.
The jump is seen in large part due to pricey deals for the NFL’s Thursday Night Football (around $1 billion a year), and the big-budget fantasy epic series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” whose first season came in at a production budget of $450 million.
On the music front, Amazon Music increased the number of songs available as part of Prime from 2 million previously to the full catalog of 100 million tracks along with hundreds of thousands of podcast episodes ad-free.
Amazon claims “The Rings of Power” was the most-watched original series worldwide, attracting more than 100 million viewers and generating more than 24 billion minutes streamed. It also drove more Prime signups worldwide during its launch window than any previous Prime Video content.
Last year, Amazon closed the acquisition of MGM in a deal valued at $8.5 billion.
