Amazon.com Inc. quietly disclosed a figure in its latest annual filing that underscores just how aggressively the company is pursuing its ambitions in entertainment: the tech and retail colossus spent $22.4 billion on content in 2024, a 10% increase from the prior year. That staggering sum—encompassing music, sports rights, and licensed and produced television and film—places Amazon among the biggest spenders in global media, rivaling and in some cases surpassing the outlays of legacy studios and streaming pure-plays alike.
The disclosure, buried in Amazon’s annual 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, was first highlighted by Mediagazer and drew immediate attention from media industry analysts and investors. The $22.4 billion figure represents not just a financial commitment but a strategic declaration: Amazon views content not as a side business but as a central pillar of its ecosystem, one designed to keep Prime members engaged, attract new subscribers, and generate advertising revenue that is rapidly becoming one of the company’s fastest-growing profit centers.
A Spending Trajectory That Shows No Signs of Slowing
To appreciate the magnitude of Amazon’s content investment, consider the trajectory. In 2023, the company spent approximately $20.3 billion on content, itself a significant jump from prior years. The 10% year-over-year increase to $22.4 billion in 2024 signals that Amazon’s leadership, led by CEO Andy Jassy, sees content spending as a growth investment rather than a cost to be optimized. This stands in contrast to some competitors who have pulled back on content budgets amid pressure to demonstrate profitability in their streaming operations.
The $22.4 billion encompasses a broad portfolio. Amazon’s content strategy is deliberately diversified: it includes original programming produced by Amazon MGM Studios, licensed content from third-party studios, a growing slate of live sports rights, Amazon Music’s catalog and exclusive releases, and content for ancillary platforms including Twitch, the live-streaming service popular with gaming audiences. Each of these verticals serves a distinct purpose within Amazon’s broader flywheel strategy, where content drives Prime membership, Prime membership drives e-commerce spending, and e-commerce spending funds more content.
Sports Rights: The Crown Jewel of Amazon’s Content Strategy
Perhaps no category within Amazon’s content budget has grown as rapidly—or as consequentially—as live sports. Amazon secured exclusive rights to the NFL’s Thursday Night Football package in a deal reportedly worth approximately $1 billion per year over 11 seasons. But the company has not stopped there. In 2024, Amazon expanded its sports portfolio significantly, acquiring rights to NASCAR starting in 2025 in a deal that will bring select races exclusively to Prime Video. The company also holds rights to select NBA games as part of a new 11-year media deal that begins with the 2025-26 season, a package reportedly valued at around $1.8 billion per year.
These sports investments are particularly strategic because they serve Amazon’s burgeoning advertising business. When Amazon introduced ads on Prime Video in early 2024, it fundamentally changed the economics of its streaming service. Live sports, with their massive and engaged audiences, command premium advertising rates. According to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, Amazon’s Thursday Night Football broadcasts have attracted major advertisers and demonstrated that streaming platforms can compete with traditional broadcast networks for premium ad dollars. The combination of subscription revenue and advertising revenue from sports content creates a dual revenue stream that helps justify the enormous rights fees.
Amazon MGM Studios and the Original Content Arms Race
Amazon’s $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM, completed in 2022, gave the company a storied library of films and television properties, including the James Bond franchise, Rocky, and thousands of other titles. More importantly, it provided Amazon MGM Studios with the infrastructure, talent relationships, and intellectual property needed to compete at the highest levels of original content production. The studio has been active across both film and television, producing high-profile series such as “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” whose first season alone reportedly cost around $465 million to produce, making it one of the most expensive television productions in history.
In 2024, Amazon MGM Studios continued to invest heavily in original programming. The second season of “The Rings of Power” debuted, and the studio greenlit numerous new series and films across genres. Amazon has also leaned into its theatrical film strategy, with titles receiving wide theatrical releases before eventually landing on Prime Video. This approach mirrors a broader industry trend where streaming companies have recognized that theatrical releases can build cultural relevance and audience anticipation that enhances the value of content when it arrives on their platforms. The studio’s output also includes a growing slate of international productions, reflecting Amazon’s push to grow Prime Video’s subscriber base in markets outside the United States.
How Amazon’s Spending Compares to Rivals
Amazon’s $22.4 billion content spend places it in rarefied company. Netflix, the world’s largest streaming service by subscriber count, spent approximately $17 billion on content in 2024, according to the company’s own disclosures and reporting by Variety. Walt Disney Co., which operates Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, has been spending in a comparable range but has signaled a more disciplined approach to content investment as it focuses on streaming profitability. Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Global, and NBCUniversal’s Peacock have all moderated their content spending as their parent companies grapple with debt loads and the economics of the streaming transition.
What distinguishes Amazon from these competitors is the source and rationale for its spending. For Netflix, content spending must be justified primarily by subscription revenue. For Amazon, content is a means to multiple ends. Prime Video is bundled with Amazon Prime, which costs $139 per year in the United States and provides free shipping, access to Prime Video, Amazon Music, Prime Reading, and other benefits. Amazon does not break out how much of its Prime subscription revenue is attributable to video specifically, but internal studies have reportedly shown that Prime members who engage with video content spend significantly more on Amazon’s retail platform than those who do not. This makes content spending partially an investment in e-commerce customer retention and lifetime value—a calculus that no pure-play media company can replicate.
The Advertising Engine Behind the Content Curtain
Amazon’s decision to introduce advertisements on Prime Video, which took effect in January 2024 for most markets, has added a powerful new dimension to the content spending equation. Subscribers can pay an additional $2.99 per month to remove ads, but early indications suggest that the vast majority of subscribers have accepted the ad-supported tier. This means Amazon can now monetize its content through both subscription fees and advertising, dramatically improving the return on its content investments.
Amazon’s advertising business overall generated $56.2 billion in revenue in 2024, according to the company’s earnings report, a figure that includes advertising across its retail platform, Twitch, and other properties in addition to Prime Video. While Amazon does not disclose Prime Video advertising revenue separately, analysts at firms including MoffettNathanson and JPMorgan have estimated that Prime Video’s ad revenue could reach $5 billion to $7 billion annually within a few years, given the platform’s massive global reach of more than 200 million Prime members. This advertising revenue effectively subsidizes content spending, allowing Amazon to outbid competitors for premium rights and talent.
Music, Podcasts, and the Broader Audio Strategy
While video and sports dominate the headlines, Amazon’s content spending also encompasses a substantial investment in music and audio. Amazon Music, which competes with Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music, offers both a free ad-supported tier and a premium subscription. The service has invested in exclusive podcast content and live audio events, and it benefits from deep integration with Amazon’s Echo devices and Alexa voice assistant. The audio strategy, while smaller in dollar terms than video, serves the same ecosystem logic: it keeps customers within Amazon’s orbit and increases the perceived value of Prime membership.
Amazon has also invested in podcast content through its ownership of Wondery, the podcast studio it acquired in 2020. Wondery produces popular shows across true crime, business, and entertainment genres, and its content is distributed across Amazon Music, Audible, and third-party platforms. This multi-platform distribution strategy allows Amazon to build audience and brand awareness while funneling listeners toward its own ecosystem.
What $22.4 Billion Means for the Future of Media
Amazon’s willingness to spend $22.4 billion on content in a single year sends a clear message to the rest of the entertainment industry: the company is not a tourist in media. It is a permanent, well-capitalized competitor with strategic advantages—namely, its ability to cross-subsidize content spending with e-commerce and cloud computing profits—that traditional media companies cannot match. Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud division, generated $107.6 billion in revenue in 2024 with operating margins above 35%, providing an enormous cash flow engine that can fund content investments for years to come.
For industry incumbents, the implications are sobering. The cost of premium content—particularly live sports rights—continues to escalate, driven in part by the willingness of tech giants like Amazon, Apple, and Google’s YouTube to pay prices that may not make sense on a standalone media basis but are rational within the context of broader platform strategies. As Amazon’s content budget continues to grow, the pressure on traditional media companies to either match that spending or find alternative strategies for competing will only intensify. The $22.4 billion figure is not just a line item in a filing—it is a statement of intent from one of the world’s most powerful companies about where it sees the future of entertainment, commerce, and consumer attention converging.
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