Senator Asks Netflix, Amazon, Others To Allow Free Access To Content During Holiday Season As A 'Public Service'

Senator Angus King (I-Maine) is reaching out to leading streaming video-on-demand platforms with a plan he hopes would encourage Americans to stay indoors during the festive season. King has written letters asking the platforms to offer their content for free, albeit for a limited period of time.

What Happened: The Senator sent the communication to Amazon Inc’s AMZN Amazon Prime Video, Netflix Inc NFLX, Walt Disney Co’s DIS Disney+, Apple Inc’s AAPL Apple TV+, Hulu and HBO Max.

Labeling entertainment during COVID-19 a “public service”, the Senator asked all the companies to offer streaming options to non-subscribers without charging them for the services.

King pointed out the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recommendation that citizens should avoid holiday travel and attempt to control COVID-19 transmission. On the other hand, the extensive lockdowns and stay-at-home measures are increasing the risks of social isolation, especially in the festive times. The Maine Senator hopes that free online streaming content could incentivize citizens to stay home.

Why Does It Matter: At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-March, King similarly pushed for some of the major internet service providers to enhance their support for remote technologies.

King said the SVOD services could benefit from such a plan too. “I suspect if they had millions of new people on their services, some of those people would say, ‘Hey, this, this service is pretty good. I'd like to continue it and sign up’,” King said in a statement, as per Yahoo! Finance.

Netflix is trialing free weekend access with a similar aim in India.

Price Action: On Monday, NFLX Stock closed 3.82% higher at $522.42, and AMZN at $3,156.97 with a 1.3% increase. DIS stock dipped 3.65% to close at $169.30, AAPL at $121.78 with a 0.51% fall.

See Also: Disney+ Subscribers Will Have To Shell Out An Extra Dollar Starting March