Amazon's TV Stars Say Biggest Challenge Is Getting People to Watch TV on Amazon

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Jennifer Grey, Richard Grey, and Paul Reiser of Red Oaks

It’s always instructive to be reminded that not all of America has bought into the “everybody watches television on multiple platforms now” sell-job that emanates from both makers of Internet and broadcast television. A number of stars from TV shows produced for Amazon told reporters at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Los Angeles on Monday that one of the biggest challenges they face is getting people to understand how they can find and watch these shows.

Bernadette Peters, a star of Mozart in the Jungle, said that she had less trouble tackling her role than she does in “getting people to learn how to find” Mozart in the Jungle.

Richard Kind, a co-star of the funny upcoming sitcom Red Oaks, said he’s proud of the work he’s doing on the show but spends some time explaining to friends and family how they can view this work he’s pleased with. He said that he frequently relies on “my 13-year-old, whose nickname is ‘Tech Support.’”

It would be easy to laugh off this as the mixture of confusion, irritation, and frustration that the new world of TV-making encounters among middle-aged consumers, but it’s a real challenge for Amazon and other streaming services. I know people of widely varying ages who subscribe to Amazon Prime and who’ve asked me how they can “get to” the critically-acclaimed Transparent on the Amazon website. This suggests a rather urgent job for the tech support department.

It’s difficult to get a fix on how large the ratings or audience is for these online shows, but there’s no doubt they’d be larger if the sites offering them didn’t want to be so cool that they can’t be bothered to help millions of people navigate easily to their offerings.

Certainly Jennifer Grey, co-star of Red Oaks, is Amazon Prime’s greatest celebrity endorser. She spent much of her time on the Red Oaks stage extolling Amazon Prime’s two-day delivery and how it makes life seem like “Christmas every day.”

“Is she getting an extra check the rest of us aren’t?” co-star Paul Reiser asked an Amazon exec with a mixture of admiration and cheekiness.