Amazon’s spend on The Rings of Power in context

Tomorrow sees the release of Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel, The Rings of Power.

The Wall Street Journal has reported rights costs of $250m (£216m) plus a first season budget of $465m (£401m), adding up to an eye-watering $715m (£617m).

To put that in some sort of context, that’s double the entire annual programming budget of BBC TWO and around half the annual programming budgets of ITV and BBC ONE. On a single show.

Now, that’s what I call a big bet (although maybe less so when you’ve got £50bn cash-in-hand and a market capitalisation of £1.1 trillion dollars…)

It’s a stark illustration of the David and Goliath scenario UK broadcasters are now facing in relation to the US streaming giants.

Not that bigger budgets necessarily equate to better, or more successful, shows (*cough* Terra Nova), but when it comes to drama, and fantasy and science fiction in particular, the production values bar is now being set incredibly high.