SEATTLE – Amazon Prime Video in late September first announced it had picked up the BBC and AMC crime drama McMafia for 200 territories, excluding the U.S. and Canada, where AMC was to air the eight-part crime drama.
However, Amazon on Thursday announced it will exclusively stream McMafia in Canada on its local Amazon Prime Video platform from January 2, a day after the world premiere on BBC in the UK.
McMafia, based on a best-selling non-fiction book, is a co-production involving the BBC, AMC Network and Cuba Pictures, and is distributed internationally by BBC Worldwide. A spokesperson for BBC Worldwide confirmed to Cartt.ca that AMC sub-licensed McMafia to Amazon Prime Video for the Canadian market.
Bell Media is understood to have passed on McMafia for CraveTV when AMC shopped the SVOD rights to the Canadian broadcaster this year.
BBC Worldwide earlier had a Canadian output deal with Shomi, the now-defunct streamer from Shaw Communications and Rogers Media, which included popular Amazon Prime series like Transparent and The CW's Jane the Virgin, which eventually landed on Netflix.
Shomi shutting down left one less Canadian streaming platform for foreign programming suppliers to sell to, as well. Fast forward and McMafia landing on Amazon Prime Video represents the latest foreign show to bypass traditional Canadian networks and be licensed to an unregulated foreign streamer.
That's just the scenario AMC Network, Viacom and other U.S. media players warned the CRTC about in 2014 when they appeared before the CRTC's Let's Talk TV hearings as the regulator weighed possible cable unbundling and pick-and-pay channel buying north of the border.
As well, more BBC dramas will bypass Canadian networks when Britbox, a subscription VOD streaming service from BBC Worldwide and UK commercial broadcaster ITV, launches here in early 2018.
BBC Worldwide, which unveiled the Canadian plans for Britbox on Thursday, gave no details on local pricing. The single, curated digital service launched in the U.S. last March for $6.99 a month.
Brit dramas never licensed to Canada, but set to show up on Britbox here, include Idris Elba's Five by Five, the Gemma Whelan-starrer The Moorside, and Reg, Jimmy McGovern's award-winning series that stars Tim Roth and Anna Maxwell Martin.
"With select shows offered as soon as 24 hours after their UK broadcast, Canadian subscribers will be among the first outside the UK to have access to these programs,” said Britbox president Soumya Sriraman.
