Starting Friday at 9 p.m. PST and ending Sunday at 11:59 p.m. local time, anyone can watch the first two seasons of Mozart in the Jungle from the Amazon Instant Video app or online from at at a dedicated link. The dram-com series about the wild inner workings of the New York Symphony picked up Golden Globe awards for Best Musical or Comedy Series and Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy Series for lead actor Gael García Bernal. Amazon similarly made the first season of Transparent free to stream for a short period after the comedy also won two awards at last year’s Golden Globe awards.
Amazon’s gold fever has also inspired the company to reduce annual Amazon Prime membership for new users to $73 this weekend — in honor of the 73rd Golden Globes Awards. Amazon ran the same promotion last year, so you can pretty much circle the first weekend after the Globes as Amazon Prime Discount Day.
The Oscars could soon be the next award show to inspire Amazon to shower us with discounts. Amazon Studios announced Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson starring Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Adam Driver will be the company’s next original movie. But, Jeff Beszos and the crew already know streaming services will have a tough time breaking into the Oscar chase. Amazon Studios’ Spike Lee-directed Chiraq and Netflix’s Beasts of No Nation (starring Idris Elba) were both shut out of this year’s Academy Awards.
The Academy Awards may be a long shot for Netflix and Amazon simply because not enough Oscar voters may be watching. The average age of Oscar voters is 63, according to a 2013 survey the Los Angeles Times conducted of 6,028 Academy Award voters. By comparison, a 2015 Nielsen report revealed 25 percent of streaming video-on-demand (SVOD) subscribers were under the age of 35.
Either way, big wins at the Globes means some nice discounts for viewers, and even potential shoppers. Until next year, enjoy the discounts.
