REPORT: AMAZON AND VIACOM TO JOIN IN NEW STREAMING SERVICE

Amazon is expected to announce as early as Thursday a deal with Viacom to launch a new streaming video service that will compete with Netflix, Reuters reported today (Wednesday), citing two people familiar with the discussions. The deal would appear to give Amazon, which already operates a popular DVD-by-mail and streaming service in the U.K. called Lovefilm, a strong advantage over Netflix, which is increasingly finding it difficult to offer recent movies to subscribers and is fast becoming a television streaming service. Currently Amazon allows subscribers to its Amazon Prime service ($79 a year) access to films from 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Universal, and Disney. The new service would expand that service to non-Amazon Prime users. Amazon also hopes to use it to boost sales of its Kindle Fire tablets.