Sen. Casey blasts streaming services, but goes light on major donor Amazon Prime
U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D) recently aimed his inflation anger at video streaming services, saying major television and movie streamers have been raising prices while paring back their content offerings — something that fits in to Casey’s “greedflation” campaign platform in which he blames corporations rather than government spending for the inflation that has eroded the purchasing power of average Americans for the last three years.
In making the attacks, however, Casey goes head-to-head with corporations like Disney, Hulu, Paramount, and Netflix, but he gives only light mention to Amazon Prime, the second-largest video-streaming service in America.
Amazon, meanwhile, has been the greatest corporate donor out of all the streaming services to Casey’s campaign committee as well as his leadership PAC, donating more than three times more than all other entertainment streaming services combined.
Publicly available records at the Federal Election Commission show Amazon has given $38,000 to the two Casey committees. Disney and Paramount, meanwhile, have donated $9,000 and $4,000 respectively to Casey’s committees.
In a press release hosted on Casey’s official U.S. Senate website, he tries to publicly shame “Netflix, Spotify, Disney Plus, Paramount Plus, Hulu, and Max” but makes no mention of Amazon at all.
The online press release also links to a longer paper that goes in-depth on how streamers have worked to increase profits in recent years.
According to a Broad + Liberty analysis, the paper makes mention of these companies the following number of times (omitting the citations pages and graphics):
Netflix — 27
Disney or Disney Plus — 9
Max (previously HBO) — 7
Paramount — 5
Amazon or Prime — 1
Yet when it comes to monetizing video streaming, Amazon has been at least as controversial as any of its other top competitors.
When Amazon first introduced Prime TV as a companion streaming service to its Prime membership services, the streaming service had no advertisements — a major selling point to induce customers to buy a membership.
But in January this year, Amazon introduced advertising into much of its natively produced content, allowing people to opt out of ads by purchasing more expensive “tiers” of Amazon Prime.
“The company promises to have ‘meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers,’ without being specific. But some ads are more than no ads. Viewers are angry, creators are angry and there isn’t even much demand from advertisers themselves, but the change is here nonetheless,” a report from USA Today said about the changes.
It didn’t take long for someone to launch a class-action lawsuit against the tech behemoth, which as of this publication was one of only six American companies with a market capitalization of over one trillion dollars.
Keeping with his campaign theme of “greedflation,” Casey calls these tactics “streamflation” as he tries to pin inflation on corporate tactics and not government spending, knowing that the inflation that has occurred since 2021 will certainly be one of the top issues in a year in which he seeks re-election to his fourth term in the U.S. Senate.
An inflation calculator provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics shows a person in July, 2024 would need $120 in order to purchase the same amount of goods as $100 could buy in January of 2021.
While hundreds or thousands of factors can influence inflation, a study by several Massachusetts economists, including a professor from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that “federal spending was two to three times more important than any other factor causing inflation during 2022.”
Business interests have not taken Casey’s attacks lying down.
In April, the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce pushed back on Casey’s “greedflation” narrative, saying the attacks “inappropriately scapegoats the business community and the constituents you represent.”
Requests for comment sent to Casey’s Senate office and campaign office were not returned.
Disclosure: The author of this article holds individual shares of Amazon, Inc.
Todd Shepherd is Broad + Liberty’s chief investigative reporter. Send him tips at tshepherd@broadandliberty.com, or use his encrypted email at shepherdreports@protonmail.com. @shepherdreports
Hulu’s price has risen 58% to $18.99, from $11.99 when it first launched its commercial-free plan in 2015.
Apple (AAPL) TV+’s price has more than doubled (100.2%) to $9.99 in just five years, from $4.99 in 2019.
Disney (DIS)+’s price has seen the biggest hike at 129% to $15.99, from $6.99 in 2019.
Max has increased 13% to $16.99, from $14.99 when it debuted as HBO Max in 2020.
Peacock’s price has jumped 40% to $13.99, from $9.99 in 2020.
Paramount+’s price has risen 30% to $12.99, from $9.99 in 2021.
There’s a variety of reasons why the cost have gone up. Some of it is easy to blame on C-Suite/Boardroom/Stockholders and investors, making sure to write bonuses for themselves on spending on wasteful things and cutting on important things. the various productions stars and staff demanding larger pay checks (deservedly or not, depending on the quality of their performances). And in certainly one very notable case, Disney, being called unethical and morally wrong would be justified, given its recent attempt to abuse of Terms of Services and forced arbitration clauses for having either a Disney+ trial subscription or its various apps used for its parks and fast pass systems to try and worm their way out of a wrongful death lawsuit against Disney Springs Raglan Road restaurant in Florida due to serving food that was mislabeled as allergen free.
But at the same time, three points remain:
1. Costs across the board have risen, and whether Senator Casey wants to admit it or not, his votes played some role in that.
2. Streaming services are not a necessity, and the consumers “accept” this “More Cost for Less Value”, for various reasons (apathy, difficulty of unsubscribing/resubscribing, probably made more obnoxious by various retention procedures the companies have, so on and so forth).
3. What is Senator Casey’s actual plan here? I doubt it will be anything significant of value to the consumer beyond the most pointless of temporary gestures to get past the election, and politicians of all sides stop with the electoral year “Bread and Circuses” routine. His campaign statement seems more a statement for the sake of saying he’s making a statement on the matter than anything else, and little else of value.