Mike Hopkins, current chairman for Sony Entertainment Television and the former CEO of streaming company Hulu, has now been signed by Amazon to lead both Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Studios from February 24th. Hopkins will join Amazon after completing his stint with Sony Entertainment Televisionsince joining the company back in 2017. Hopkins is expectedly roped in by Amazon to cover up for the absence of Amazon’s SVP, Jeff Blackburn, who was leading the company’s digital entertainment plans but is soon going to take a year long break.
Before joining Sony Entertainment Television in 2017, Hopkins served as the CEO for Hulu during 2013 to 2017. He however established himself before becoming Hulu’s CEO as he worked for the 21st Century Fox and lead their distribution strategy. Amazon has to work hard on its entertainment content after new competitors like Disney+ and Apple TV+ announced their arrival in the video streaming industry. Hopkins is not the first one though to leave Sony and join other major tech companies to head their respective entertainment sections. Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, who were the president of Sony before leaving the company, joined Apple to look after Apple’s video content division.
Amazon has been in the headlines for targeting president Donald Trump over the USD 10 billion worth Pentagon contract which was surprisingly awarded to Microsoft. The company asked Trump and Defence Secretary Mark Esper to testify in front of the court explaining why the deal was awarded to Microsoft and not Amazon. The Pentagon deal had always been under shadowy headlines partly because of Amazon’s healthy bonding with Pentagon and partly because of Trump’s disliking of Jeff Bezos and his company, because of the news that are published against Donald Trump in The Washington Post.