The Grand Tour: Jeff Bezos' Flash of Genius

There are few things that most people can agree on in car culture. But one very indisputable opinion is that Jeff Bezos was a genius for signing Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May and Andy Wilman on to make the flagship TV series for Amazon Prime’s livestreaming service.

But, until now, few people really saw just how ingenious Amazon’s business plan really was; let alone the value that the ex-Top Gear hosts have brought to one of the Internet’s biggest revenue generators.

More Than Just TV

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know just how big Amazon is in modern life. They’re older than this century, and have been consistently among one of the Internet’s biggest websites. Recently. they’ve taken full advantage of the boom in the popularity of online shopping; surpassing Walmart in terms of market capitalization. The da Vinci behind the operation (and he is, in the creative sense, akin to Leonardo) is, without question, Mr. Bezos. And he knows a hell of a lot more about business than any mere mortal I can think of.

You see, he’s a leading pioneer of e-commerce, and he’s been able to milk the cash cow more effectively than Farmer Trump. One of Amazon’s biggest competitors in the digital market, unsurprisingly, is Netflix. They’re so popular that they are essentially a quintessential component in the TV culture of the 21st century. So, naturally, anyone who dares to compete with Netflix had better be loaded with both money and cojones.

Apparently, Jeff Bezos has both in surplus.

Why Prime Is So Friggin’ Smart

At the face of it, Amazon Prime TV and Netflix are almost identical. You pay for both per month, and you get unlimited access to a plethora of TV shows and movies. Unlike Netflix, though, that fee gets you some fringe benefits. You also have access to Amazon Prime, which gives you a whole bunch of perks at the Amazon store including: free two-day shipping; special discounts; early and exclusive access to special deals; and more (depending on where you live).

If you’re already big into online shopping, there’s a good chance that you already pay for Prime. Personally, I missed Amazon Prime, but couldn’t justify paying the extra cannoli to get the benefits after my free trial ran out.

When The Grand Tour came out, however, the decision was a no-brainer. Yes, I could have done what many other people did by downloading episodes illegally. However, my computer is too valuable to me to be going on to Putlocker and risk getting RKO’d by a computer virus. I also don’t want to spend 2 days waiting while downloading a 4K torrent that takes up considerable real estate on my hard drive. For me, and I assume for a lot of people as well, $10 a month doesn’t seem like a lot of money. Especially considering the bang you get for your buck.

See, although Netflix and Prime Video be offer a similar platform at a similar price (and, let’s be real, you’re probably not going to ditch Netflix), it’s a little more complicated to actually put a value on your Prime membership. As a wise old man once told me, a cheapskate is a fool who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Yes, it might seem like a lot of money to pay for something that you already get with Netflix (save for The Grand Tour and a few other originals); but when you consider the perks you get at the Amazon store, it becomes a lot easier to justify.

Personally, I do enough online shopping to make that membership fee seem trivial. In fact, if I tried hard enough, I could probably get more than $8-10 in savings by using Prime to buy stuff I would buy anyway at a store; on top of the value that The Grand Tour brings me. In economics, this is called consumer surplus. This basically means that you value something more than what you actually pay for it.

If you believe that a penny saved is a penny earned, then The Grand Tour could actually make you money. But there’s another reason why Prime Video is ingenious. In my case, because of this, I actually have a huge incentive to get a Prime membership instead of bootlegging TGT episodes, which I think is a brilliant anti-piracy strategy.

The Grand Treasure Trove

Okay, so now that I’ve sung the praises of Amazon Prime Video, it’s time to put The Grand Tour into the picture. In theory, Amazon could have simply tried to take out a bunch of licences to stream movies that Netflix didn’t have. However, by hiring some of the world’s most-watched TV personalities, what Amazon has really done is created a captive market. I’m 110% sure that Jeff Bezos knew full-well that current and future Prime customers would have no trouble justifying the membership fee if it meant that they could watch one of the best shows out there.

As far as the risk associated with hiring Clarkson the loose cannon? Rubbish. Even the BBC had to admit that firing Clarkson really screwed them over. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the trio not only had some bargaining power, but could probably pick whichever network they wanted to. The fact that Amazon landed them probably had about as much to do with luck as it had to do with the negotiating skills of Jeff Bezos. Add all the money you get from charging admission for the tapings (which probably sold out faster than Nigel Farage), and you’ve got to wonder just how much bank Amazon is making from TGT.

The Bottom Line

The consumer situations I pointed out before? Jeff probably thought they were obvious. He was playing chess, not checkers. There’s no doubt in my mind that he knew not only where he was on the golf course, but how to play the ball as it lied. The way Prime Video is integrated with the rest of Amazon Prime, they’ve hit a hole-in-one. With the old Top Gear being one of the most popular television shows…in the world, Amazon isn’t just getting viewers from the trio, but new customers as well. From the point of view of consumers and Top Gear fans, it’s a win-win situation—he’s not really making losers out of anyone.

Well, except for retailers and the BBC…

#ecarnomics