Viewers pick five new shows for Amazon

LOS ANGELES - Amazon.com Inc. says that it will produce a pair of new comedy shows and three new children's shows for viewing on its video streaming service, capping a one-of-a-kind experiment that gave viewers a say in the selections.

The five shows were culled from 14 pilots that were put up for free on its website and made available over Amazon's video apps on mobile devices and game consoles starting in April. Executives looked at ratings, reviews and view counts in a process that upended traditional TV show development. Traditional TV studios generally screen pilot episodes before small focus groups and executives before determining which go into production.

The shows announced Wednesday are Amazon's first original series.

Roy Price, director of Amazon Studios, said he was gratified that the pilots generated hundreds of thousands of views from people in the United States and Britain. He said the company looks forward to repeating the process.

"Once you have hundreds of thousands of people watch a specific pilot, you're not talking about a focus group anymore," Price said in a phone interview from Amazon's Seattle headquarters. "You're asking your actual audience how they feel about it."

One of the comedies selected is Alpha House, created by Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau and starring John Goodman, about four senators who rent a house together in Washington. The other is Betas, which follows four friends and the new mobile social networking app they are developing.

The children's shows are Annebots, about a young scientist and her robot helpers; Creative Galaxy, an animated series; and Tumbleaf, which is aimed at preschoolers.

Amazon has been trying to develop movies and TV shows based on thousands of scripts it has received since soliciting them in November 2010, although only one of the 14 pilots made for viewer feedback came out of that process - Those Who Can't, which ultimately wasn't selected.

 Ten episodes will be made for each of the comedies, Price said. Amazon has yet to determine how many episodes of each children's show will be made. The series will be available in the United States, Britain, and Germany later this year or next year.

Other than some possible free sampling, the videos will be made available only to subscribers of Amazon Prime, the online retailer's $79-a-year membership plan. Amazon Prime also provides customers with free two-day shipping on certain items bought at Amazon.com, a book borrowing club, and other videos to watch.

Amazon is still considering whether to release all the episodes for a season at once - the way Netflix has done with its original series such as Arrested Development - or to release them in spurts or one at a time.

Amazon competes in subscription video with such services as Netflix and Hulu Plus, which have made their own significant forays into original programming.

Although Netflix didn't have subscribers watch pilots before committing to a full season, the service has extensive data on viewer habits. With Arrested Development, it studied how the first three seasons performed on its service after Fox canceled the series in 2006.