IMDb has today announced a new, free and ad-supported streaming service called ‘Freedive', though it has a rather small offering and is US-only for now. This move adds to Amazon's growing digital ecosystem and gives Amazon a serious competitor to the new Roku channel, which also features a ton of free, ad-supported content.
Since Netflix incepted the modern digital entertainment streaming revolution twelve years ago, the entire entertainment industry has evolved towards its recurring subscription model which unlocks a vault of content, including self-produced content. Hulu and others messed with the formula a bit, by adding ads into the mix alongside the subscription, confusingly, however IMDb has now announced their own foray into the ring with their own free but ad-supported ‘Freedive' service.
Unlike previous attempts at free (and legal) film and series streaming services, however, which have been restricted to certain networks, channels, or old/indie films, Freedive appears to want to follow Netflix and Amazon in offering a broad range of content.
Featuring films from Christopher Nolan's critically acclaimed Memento, to critical flops like Resident Evil: Apocalypse, and series' of the same range of quality, Freedive has an offering of only a few dozen at the moment. Being US-only also significantly limits the opportunity for IMDb's new streaming service, at least for now.
Currently the service is only accessible from a browser, and on Amazon Fire TV devices as a new app in ‘Your Apps & Channels' and via an Alexa command. Expect apps to roll out to all ecosystems “soon” as the service matures though, as it's in its early days.
Regardless, it'll be interesting to see how Freedive shakes out.
