Amazon denies putting Freevee on the endangered streamer list

Freevee, the streamer formerly known as IMDb TV, is in trouble. Mere months after nabbing Jury Duty, Freevee’s first crossover hit and the rare show that actually led people to Prime Video’s original ad tier experiment, Amazon has reportedly placed Freevee on a life deacceleration program that will end with its ultimate demise and probably another round of layoffs. How are these deeply unprofitable streamers expected to pretend they’re making money without stripping their products for parts?

Per Adweek, Freevee’s days are numbered. It’s not a question of “whether or not Amazon will persist with two stand-alone streaming services” anymore. The magazine’s sources are “certain the answer is no.” Amazon will kill one app and consume it for its own ad tier option, which the company is currently being sued over. Adweek believes that Judgement Day for Freevee could arrive as early as April, giving us a couple more months to enjoy episodes of Mad Men with even more unhinged ad breaks.

Amazon has denied Adweek’s reporting. “There are no changes to Freevee,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to Deadline. “Amazon Freevee remains an important streaming offering providing both Prime and non-Prime customers thousands of hit movies, shows, and originals, all for free.”

Subscribing to a new streaming service is an American pastime as old as SeeSo. However, Freevee strangely denied us the right to sacrifice our email inboxes on the altar of yet another streamer, angering and bewildering users and, more specifically, the makers of said app. Freevee didn’t offer a proper subscription model that turns casual ad-viewing TV watchers into Amazon Prime members who order bundles of cheap iPhone car adapters in between episodes of Reacher. Furthermore, as many viewers have remarked to their spouses, significant others, pets, or ghostly visitors haunting their lonely lives with a grim reminder to change the carbon monoxide detector, it doesn’t make sense for Amazon to own two streamers. But hey, free Columbo.

TVLine reports that the transition from FreeVee to Prime Video’s legally murky ad tier has already begun. Shows like American Rust and Leverage: Redemption have already made the jump to Bezos’ digital content barge ahead of the changeover. Ultimately, one hopes this will prevent users from the confusion that haunts their waking lives as they break into cold sweats, heavy breathing, and dull pain in the frontal lobe, wondering, “Dear God, someone please tell me what streaming service am I watching?!?”