Dan Farber, writing for CNET:
Whether the [14] pilots get the green light for a full season of episodes will depend on what the data says. It’s Amazon’s studio, after all, and data is king. “The goal is to get customer feedback, to understand which ones customers are excited about and are promising,” said Amazon Studios head Roy Price. The studio was formed in Nov. 2010, with a focus on crowd-sourced, high-quality TV and movie programming.
Compare and contrast with Netflix’s approach to new programming:
“The goal,” [Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos] says, “is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us.” His seductive pitch to today’s new breed of TV auteurs: a huge audience, real money, no meddlesome executives (“I’m not going to give David Fincher notes”), no pilots (television’s great sucking hole of money and hope), and a full-season commitment.