Amazon.com is about to announce an online content deal with Viacom, confirming the speculations of analysts, according to Reuters.
The alliance would launch a standalone subscription service, which is intended to give the likes of Netflix a run for their money.
Last week, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman had announced during the company’s quarterly earnings call that an online subscription VOD deal is being finalised.
Dauman had, however, declined to name the partner then.
Amazon had earlier inked deals with CBS Corp, Time Warner Inc’s Warner Bros, News Corp’s Fox, Sony Corp, among others, for its Prime Instant Video service.
Amazon now wants to open up its licensed library of TV programmes and movies as a standalone service for non-Prime members too, and also plans to use it to give a thrust to its Kindle Fire tablet, according to persons close to Amazon executives.
Very recently, Verizon Communications and Coinstar’s subsidiary Redbox too had entered into a partnership to provide video streaming services and DVD rentals by the second half of 2012.
