Why Prime Video Stopped Betting On Our Stories

He who borrows the drum must also keep time.

Prime Video’s retreat from serious investment in Nigerian and wider African originals wasn’t sudden to insiders; it was a slow unravelling that went public in January 2024 when Amazon signalled it would stop commissioning local originals across Africa and the Middle East and restructure its regional teams. The decision meant layoffs, reassignment of local leads, and an abrupt scaling back of the commissioning pipeline that had only just begun to form. For Nollywood producers, who had started to factor Prime into development and financing conversations, the move felt like a promise half-paid: a global company arrived with a handshake and a cheque, then quietly narrowed its focus back to Europe.  

Prime’s Africa experiment was a tale of two books, breadth through licensing, but poverty through originals. On the licensing front, Prime amassed a large catalogue of African-catalog titles (some industry counts later claimed Prime Video hosted huge numbers of African-flagged titles via licensing), making it a useful distribution shelf for finished films. But when it came to homegrown originals that drive cultural conversation and platform loyalty, Prime’s slate was small, a handful of headline projects (Gangs of Lagos; the localised LOL: Last One Laughing Naija; and a few other commissioned features and unscripted efforts), plus multi-year licensing deals with local studios like Inkblot and multi-year collaborations with filmmakers such as Jadesola Osiberu. That strategy, license much, commission little, left Prime unable to compete with Netflix and Showmax, which invested more heavily and more visibly in original content and marketing.  

Who led the push and who got paid? Internally, Amazon built an Africa Originals structure: Ned Mitchell was the Head of Originals for Africa & the Middle East, overseeing the strategy, while Wangi Mba-Uzoukwu was appointed to run Nigerian local originals (with other local hires following). The team made signalled investments, multi-year licensing arrangements, and partnerships with established Nollywood houses, and paid established names and producers through those deals. But because the commissioning list was short, the “most” that people got from Prime was often licensing checks and one-off production deals rather than the steady commissioning that builds lasting creative ecosystems. The division of responsibilities and leadership changes (including the later arrival and movement of regional executives) suggested a structure that never fully achieved long-term operational commitment.  

Did Prime do its research, or did it parachute in because Netflix did? The evidence points to an earnest but undercooked market entry. Amazon did bring local staff, inked strategic deals (Inkblot, Osiberu), and experimented with Nigerian formats, that’s not accidental. But multiple industry insiders and journalists have argued Prime underestimated the work required: localisation of the product experience, aggressive local marketing, payment and UX optimisation, and the cultural marketing muscle necessary to turn a title into a national talking point. In short, they researched enough to find production partners, but not enough to understand distribution behaviour, discoverability problems on the app, or the way African audiences respond to platform-native marketing. The consequence was titles that might have lived bigger lives on Netflix or Showmax fizzled on Prime because they lacked promotional oxygen.  

Was Prime’s film quality worse than Netflix’s? Quality is subjective, but two measurable weaknesses hurt Prime: (1) scarce originals that could be made obvious cultural events, and (2) weaker marketing and UX for discoverability. Where Netflix built sustained local campaigns (billboards, social media stunts, local PR) and amassed a visible catalogue of originals that seeded conversation, Prime often felt like a repository where good films arrived but did not get remixed into national moments. The implication isn’t that Prime commissioned worse films across the board; some of its Nigerian films were well-made, but that Prime failed to turn those films into cultural currency. In streaming economics, visibility and habitual viewing often trump marginal differences in craft.  

What this means for Nollywood going forward: Prime’s scaling back left a rhetorical and practical hole, rhetorical because global validation from a platform like Amazon matters; practical because producers who had budgeted to meet Prime’s commissioning timelines faced lost revenue and uncertain recoupment paths. But it also clarified a lesson for creators and policymakers: licences and single-deal paydays aren’t the same as a sustained commissioning partner that builds talent pipelines. The Africans who will benefit most are those who diversify distribution (theatre + local streamers + global licensors), insist on strong marketing clauses in deals, and demand clearer release and discoverability plans. If a global streamer wants to come back, they must do more than sign a few big names; they must “keep time” with the market: commit to marketing, local product optimisation, payments, and a multi-year commissioning cadence.  

In Nov 2023, Prime Video was reported at roughly 5.6% of Africa’s streaming market versus 33.5% for Netflix and 39% for Showmax, a gap that helps explain why Prime’s decision-makers felt Africa didn’t move the needle. Netflix publicly tallied and trumpeted multiple originals and heavy investment figures (Netflix has publicly reported hundreds of millions invested in African content since 2016), Prime’s commissioned African originals numbered in the single digits to low-teens before the 2024 cutback, enough to make headlines, not enough to build a habit. Industry reporting and insider commentary across 2023 - 2025 repeatedly cite the commissioning slate as limited.