On Tuesday, Amazon announced that they had reached content licensing agreement with HBO. The licencing agreement will give Amazon Prime members access to a massive collection of HBO original programming. HBO content will become available for Prime subscribers beginning May 21, and will include access to:

• All seasons of revered classics such as The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Rome and Six Feet Under, and of recent favorites such as Eastbound & Down, Enlightened and Flight of the Conchords
• Epic miniseries, including Angels in America, Band of Brothers, John Adams, The Pacific and Parade’s End
• Select seasons of current series such as Boardwalk Empire, Treme and True Blood
• Hit original movies like Game Change, Too Big To Fail and You Don’t Know Jack
• Pedigreed documentaries including the Autopsy and Iceman series, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib and When the Levees Broke
• Hilarious original comedy specials from Lewis Black, Ellen DeGeneres, Louis CK and Bill Maher.¹

Further, Amazon notes that the deal will bring, “Previous seasons of other HBO shows, such as Girls, The Newsroom and Veep will become available over the course of the multi-year agreement, approximately three years after airing on HBO.”²

This move represents a major change in strategy for HBO, who until now has been reluctant to license its content to any streaming services.  While no financial components of the deal were disclosed, it is safe to assume that the deal was extraordinarily costly for Amazon. Perhaps this explains the bump in the price of a Prime subscription.