What's going on?

Jeremy Clarkson and his Top Gear co-hosts are moving to Amazon to host a new car-themed show that will be available exclusively to Amazon Prime subscribers.

What does this mean?

Amazon has a television and movie streaming service, much like that of Netflix. But Amazon bundles it with its Amazon Prime offering, which offers other benefits and costs about $100 per year. By signing up the former Top Gear stars � presumably at a high cost � it will be hoping to bolster its subscriber�base. In a strategy that has been termed �tent-poling,� streaming services have focused on creating a handful of high profile shows that motivate viewers to sign-up (think of Netflix�s House of Cards starring Kevin Spacey).

Why should I care?

1. The success of Amazon Prime is one reason why Amazon posted such stellar earnings last week. If Amazon can drive further Prime sales by investing in popular content, it should boost profits and be positive for the stock price.
2. It also highlights that content is being increasingly produced by streaming services such as Amazon and Netflix, probably to the long term detriment of the major television stations and perhaps their publicly traded parent companies � such as ABC (owned by Disney), NBC (Comcast) and CBS (CBS Corporation).