Amazon has had its own free (ad-supported) streaming service for a few years now, called IMDb TV. Amazon also owns the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), so tying it in with a streaming service probably sounded like a good idea on paper, but in reality, there wasn't much connecting the two. Now the streaming service has a new name, though it doesn't really seem like an improvement.
IMDb TV will be known as Amazon Freevee, starting April 27. Amazon told The Hollywood Reporter, "Over the past two years, we have seen tremendous growth for our AVOD service and are committed to bringing our audiences premium, free-to-consumer content. We’re looking forward to building on this momentum with an increasing slate of inventive and broadly appealing originals, and are excited to establish Freevee as the premier AVOD service with content audiences crave."
Freevee mainly competes with other free streaming services, such as NBCUniversal's Peacock (which only restricts some content to a paid plan), Paramount's Pluto TV, Roku TV, and Plex. Freevee only released iOS and Android apps last year, and around the same time, it expanded to the United Kingdom. It's essentially a free tier for Amazon Prime Video, especially since the only way to watch it on desktop is through the Amazon website.
Freevee's content library is similar to what you'd get from other free streaming services — mostly older shows and movies with a fewer newer less-popular titles. The current library in the United States includes 3rd Rock from the Sun, Office Space, Rio 2, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, Napoleon Dynamite, and 24. More recently, Freevee has expanded into original content, which the platforms aims to ramp up by 70% in 2022.
The new name might help Freevee, given it's a bit more descriptive than 'IMDb TV,' but it's still not a great name for a streaming service. Granted, there's not much competition there — most services are just the name of the company followed by a plus sign.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter