When you read that Amazon offers 17,000 “movies and TV programs” in its streaming library, and that Netflix has 60,000, what do you assume that figure means? Sure, a movie’s a movie, but what constitutes a TV program? Using Amazon’s math, a “program” is a single episode of a series, meaning that the entire run of “24” counts as 192 programs. Is this a reasonable way to count videos, or is it misleading? Fast Company’s stance is clear: they think that both companies are using this trick to inflate their total program count and make their services look more impressive than they are.

Streaming films and TV series from a large library is one of the selling points for Amazon’s Prime service, but this trick leads to some weird statistics in Fast Company’s analysis. For example: the 715 pisodes of various Power Rangers programs available for streaming comprise 4.2% of Amazon’s entire library. Or, counted by series, three programs.

If you consider a “program” a single unit of entertainment, then this method makes sense. And in the end, it’s not the total number of programs that matters. It’s whether a company streams anything that you actually want to watch. As a Netflix representative explained, “The number of titles does not equate to member happiness or viewing pleasure.”

Amazon Massively Inflates Its Streaming Library Size [Fast Company] (Thanks, Tony!)

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