Netflix’s main competitor, Amazon, will start expanding its video streaming globally in December with the launch of ’The Grand Tour’. The show will premiere in the first 5 countries tomorrow, Friday.

The Grand Tour in 200 countries
Amazon is producing TV series, movies, and now also a car show with Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May as hosts. The show will help bring Amazon’s streaming ambitions to a global audience starting from December.

- ”The Grand Tour launches in the UK, US, Germany, Austria and Japan this Friday, 18 November. In December, the show will premiere in 200 countries and territories around the world, exclusively on Amazon. Fans from around the globe will be able to catch up on all episodes aired to date. New episodes will be released weekly, every Friday, worldwide,” says Amazon

The show will launch tomorrow in existing regions and expand to “200 countries or territories” in December. There are 196 official countries in the world, if you include Taiwan. An exact date in December was not confirmed.

The first season of The Grand Tour has 12 episodes. Amazon has already committed to36 episodes, or three seasons. At BBC, ‘Top Gear’ was the most watched TV program in the world. It is estimated that BBC on average spent Ł650,000 per episode. Amazon is planning to spend Ł4.5m per episode, according to some estimates.


A full streaming catalog?
Amazon Video, the streaming service, already has millions of subscribers and is estimated to be second only to Netflix. It is not clear if Amazon wants to bring a comprehensive streaming catalog to a global audience in December or only ‘The Grand Tour’ initially.

Amazon is producing original TV series such as ’Transparent’, ’The Man in the High Castle’ and ’Mozart in the Jungle’ as well as original films such as Spike Lee’s ’Chi-Raq’. Some of these productions are available to watch in Ultra HD and HDR quality. The Grand Tour has been shot in 4K Ultra HD.

Amazon Video is available through Smart TVs, media streamers (including Amazon FireTV), smartphones, tablets, and PCs. However, it is not available on Apple TV and Chromecast.

The news about the global expansion was announced in the video above. Amazon has declined to offer additional details at this point. In the US, Amazon Video is a $9/month streaming service.

So. People of Ireland, Canada, Australia and pretty well everywhere else. You WILL be able to watch the Grand Tour. Amazon has gone global.
— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) November 16, 2016

- Source: Amazon