Feel like Prime Video is missing episodes or language options? You’re not alone – and Amazon is planning to fix it
Errors and omissions in Prime Video’s catalog mean some viewers are quitting shows altogether
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Everybody makes mistakes, but some mistakes are more serious than others – and when you’re running one of thebest streaming services, mistakes such as missing episodes, terrible translations and incorrect titles can be a real problem for your subscribers. According to leaked internal documents seen byBusiness Insider(viaQuartz), some of the errors inPrime Video’s catalog are so bad that some viewers have been ditching shows entirely.
The documents suggest that at least some of the massive amounts of moneyAmazonhas invested in Prime Video have been undermined by serious catalog errors, and those errors are leading to a very high volume of customer complaints. Some 60% of all content-related customer experience complains last year were about catalog errors, BI reports.
Amazon’s on the Prime Video catalog case
The level of complaints is being taken very seriously by Amazon, which is launching a new program with the target of reducing such complaints by 15,000 per year. The top issues complained about were incomplete or inconsistent titling, and what the documents call “season integrity” problems. That’s when you’re streaming a show only to discover that there are missing episodes, inconsistent playback options or wrongly labeled content. Last year, BI says, Amazon received over 10,000 “customer friction records” related to such issues.
Some of the issues identified in the documents include:
And many customers took their complaints to other places, such as forums and Reddit. It’s likely that many such customers didn’t complain directly to Amazon, so the number of errors could be higher than the leaked documents report.
The most likely explanation for this is human error: any classification system with lots of data has the scope for problems, especially if your content is coming from lots of different places and in multiple languages. But while such errors are understandable they can also be expensive: the documents suggest that wrongly localized content could lead to 20% drop-offs in engagement. With the streaming landscape more competitive than ever, Amazon is keen to ensure that thebest Prime Video moviesandbest Prime Videos showscan a) actually be found, and b) are watched all the way through.
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Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir,Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock bandUnquiet Mind.
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