亚马逊教你拍电视

    为什么你觉得这对亚马逊是一笔意义重大的投资？

    去年我们一共生产了24部试播节目，甚至比一家普通的电视台为全年的黄金时段准备的节目还多。我们非常忙，因为我们没有自己的演员阵容。可能几年内我们就会收回一部分投资。

    拍电视剧对亚马逊的意义是什么？

    拍电视剧是为了向顾客提供价值，让顾客觉得我们的服务是独特的，同时可以与顾客建立一种关系，让他们还会回来……生产原创内容的另一个目标是吸引顾客加入这项服务。

    亚马逊通过众包的方法在做电视剧，那么在这个过程中你最想调整的部分是什么？

    在这个过程中我什么也不想调整，因为它让我们可以有更多实验性的东西。虽然有人通过直接向电视剧公司订购整部电视剧也获得了成功，但是我认为，如果你直接从电视剧公司订购整部剧集的话，它可能限制了你实际上能够与谁合作。你的选择范围可能会更小。

    需求至上的环境与广播环境很不同，在需求至上的环境下，你真正想要的是找到的确非常喜欢这部剧的人，只有非常喜欢的人才会费力从众多资源中把它找出来看。观众必须得非常希望在现代化的电视上看到这部剧，而不能产生想换频道的欲望或者只是简单看看这是什么节目就算了。现在一部拍得“还挺好”的电视剧是远远不够的。

    现在我们可以更好地了解是否有一部分人对这部剧非常感兴趣。就在不久之前，你还得更重视观众的热情的广度，而不是观众热情的深度。这意味着像《透明》这种电视剧可以在这种环境下表现得很好。过去有些剧集虽然不是很独特，但符合所有人的口味。这种剧在过去可能很有价值，但今天对我们来说就不那么有价值了。

    你们的观众群有多大？

    我们没有披露这类数据，但是我们的电视剧经常一经推出，就在亚马逊服务中成为收看最多的剧集之一。比如《阿尔法屋》曾一度登上亚马逊收视榜的榜收，意味着它在亚马逊的整体服务中扮演了一个重要的角色。

    你们下一步打算做什么？

    下一步我们会继续推出几部试播剧，到了秋季，这些剧集就会陆续上线。然后我们还会推出新一轮的试播剧。到目前为止我们还没有（像奈飞那样）把我们所有的电视剧都在同一时间推出，但是我们可能想尝试一下。这种做法比较复杂，因为你没法真正进行测试。媒体和顾客对这种做法都抱有一些热情，所以我们在今年秋季这些剧集上线之前会研究一下。（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎

    Would you say this is a significant investment for Amazon?

    We've put out 24 pilots in the last year, which is more than a typical broadcast network will do per year for prime time for sure. We're busy because we don't have a slate, a lineup. Maybe in a few years we can pull it back a little bit.

    Why does this make sense for Amazon?

    Because it's all about providing value for customers, making the service feel unique and distinctive, and having a relationship with customers where they are coming back ... Part of the purpose of original content is to get people to really engage with the service.

    So Amazon crowdsources its shows. What do you want to tweak about that process?

    I want to tweak nothing about that process! It allows us to be a lot more experimental. Kudos to everyone who has a success ordering straight to series, but I would think that if you were going to order everything straight to series, it probably constrains you a little bit in terms of who you are realistically going to work with. You'd probably have a shorter list.

    What you really want in the on-demand environment, which is different than the broadcast environment, is you need to find people who really like the show enough to seek it out. You need to really want to watch the show in modern TV. It's not about changing the channel anywhere, or just seeing what's on. It's not good enough to be good-ish.

    We can do a better job getting insight into whether there's a pocket of people who are really interested in the show. A while ago you had to focus more on breadth of enthusiasm rather than depth of enthusiasm. That means a show like Transparent really works in this environment. There are shows in the past that were not as distinctive but universally palatable that would have been valuable, but today for us would not be valuable.

    How big are your audiences?

    Well, we don't disclose, but we see that often our shows are the top shows on the service right after they're released. You see Alpha House go to No. 1 for awhile, and that means it is playing a meaningful role for the service as a whole.

    What's ahead?

    Well we'll see a couple more pilots, and then in the fall these series will premier. And then there'll be a new round of pilots. So far we haven't released our shows all at the same time [like Netflix has done], but we might want to try it. It's complicated because you can't really test it. There is some enthusiasm in the press and with customers for doing it all at once, so we're going to take a look at it before we debut our shows this fall.