Roy Price, the former head of Prime Video and Amazon Studios, has announced his return to the entertainment industry with a new venture focused on the burgeoning microseries market. His platform, humorously named The Number One Best Website (N1BW), launched on Monday.
Price described the platform's name as "absurdly long" and intentionally retro, evoking the early 2000s internet era. "It's meant to have a sense of humor," he told Page Six Hollywood.
N1BW aims to function similarly to a YouTube for microseries. Users can create and upload their own content, with viewers paying to watch. Creators retain 70% of the revenue generated from their work. The platform also offers tools for creators to test show concepts, find collaborators, and build production teams, including actors. Price noted that N1BW streamlines the process of assembling a team and monetizing content, which can be a significant hurdle in traditional production.
"If you do nothing other than create it and attract the team, get everybody going, then you get 20% of the creative pool," Price explained regarding creator compensation and team participation.
Price believes this model reflects a shift in content creation as traditional Hollywood structures evolve. "The idea of people producing their own projects, maybe collaborating with others, not going through some central organization to get approval, and then getting it out there into the world in a way that is economically profitable for them — I think that’s quite doable now with microseries," he stated. He anticipates this trend will expand to other media in the future.
Price resigned from Amazon in 2017 amid accusations of sexual harassment, which he has denied. Following his departure, he moved to Hong Kong and founded a firm called International Art Machine. He has also written opinion pieces for The New York Times and maintained a presence on Substack, where he recently addressed his exit from Amazon. In March, he wrote about the box office success of Amazon MGM's "Project Hail Mary" for The Times. He stated that he had not actively sought to remain relevant in the industry, spending time in Hong Kong, but his thoughts on the future of showbiz persisted.