Two years ago, Amazon (AMZN) started developing television content. In the past year, the company produced 24 pilots, which, according to Amazon Studios director Roy Price, is more than a typical broadcast network will prepare for primetime in a year.
亚马逊（Amazon）从两年前开始制作自己的电视节目。亚马逊工作室主管罗伊·普莱斯表示，去年亚马逊一共生产了24部试播节目，甚至比一家普通的电视台为全年的黄金时段准备的节目还多。
Four of the five comedy and drama shows that Amazon debuted on Feb. 6 will be made into a series. They include Transparent, a dark comedy about an L.A. family with a father who is transitioning genders; Mozart in the Jungle, a comedy set amid the dramas of life in a New York orchestra; The After, a sci-fi drama from the creator of The X-Files;
亚马逊于今年2月6日试播的五部喜剧和电视剧中，将有四部被正式拍成剧集，其中包括一部黑色喜剧《透明》（Transparent），围绕一个父亲是变性人的洛杉矶家庭展开；还有讲述纽约的一支管弦乐队日常生活的喜剧《丛林里的莫扎特》（Mozart in the Jungle）；由《X档案》出品人再次操刀推出的科幻电视剧《以后》（The After）；以及根据侦探小说家迈克尔o康奈利的小说改编的电视剧《博斯》（Bosch）。另一部去年推出的电视剧《阿尔法屋》（Alpha House）则将迎来第二季。
and Bosch, a drama based on books by the detective novelist Michael Connelly. Alpha House, released last year, will get a second season.
《财富》杂志在《连线》（Wired）杂志于纽约举办的连线商业大会上采访了普莱斯，请他解答如何才能生产出好的电视节目，以及亚马逊为何要拍摄自己的电视剧。
Fortune spoke with Price on May 13 at Wired's BizCon in New York about how to make good TV and why it makes sense for Amazon.
《财富》：你人在西雅图，你的团队在哪里？
Fortune: You are in Seattle. Where is your team?
普莱斯：他们在洛杉矶。不过如果想做电视节目的话，就必须去洛杉机。我有一张阿拉斯加航空的MVP金卡。今年八月我会搬回到洛杉矶——我就是从那儿来的。
Price:They're in L.A. If you want to make TV shows, you gotta go to L.A. I have MVP Gold status on Alaska [Airlines]. I'll move back to L.A. -- I'm from there -- in August.
九年前你来到西雅图加盟亚马逊，当时你主要负责什么？
You moved to Seattle nine years ago to join Amazon. What were you tasked with doing then?
我来了之后主要负责数字视频商店的启动，当时它还叫DVD商店。当时我们面临的问题是，如何才能实现数字方面的视频业务？我记得那些日子，一个工作室的负责人曾对我说：“你知道吗，我告诉你一件事，永远不会有人下载我们哪怕一部电影。”但是八个月以后，我们就和他们签订了协议，但当时正是一个转型的阶段。
I came to start the digital video store, at the time the DVD store. The question was, How are we going to approach the digital side of the video business? Those were the days when, I can remember one studio head saying to me, "You know, I can tell you one thing: No one is ever going to download one of our movies." And you know, eight months later you have a deal with them, but it was a period of transition.
现在差不多所有人都跳到专业制作电视节目的领域里了。雅虎今年也宣布了一些决定，格兰媒体（Glam Media）也是。现在市面上已经有很多电视节目了——是不是存在一个容纳极限？
Right now, everyone is jumping into professionally produced content. Yahoo announced some things this year. So did Glam Media. There's so much television -- is there a limit?
我想有些人可能会彻底失败，但是很多人也会发现一些独特的东西，一些值得说的东西，而且拥有自己的观众。现在人们有很多创意。我认为关键的问题是，从业务模式的角度看，你是否能吸引足够多的人对这部剧产生热情。这取决于你的业务模式是什么——是靠订阅还是靠广告。我相信我们会看到很多试验作品和艺术上的成功，然后他们会找出赚钱的办法。
I suspect some people will fail outright, but a lot of people will find something that is distinctive and worth saying and has an audience. There's a lot of creativity out there. I think the question is whether you'll have enough people getting passionate about the show to make it work from a business model point of view. It depends on what your business model is -- subscription vs. advertising. I have no doubt we'll see a lot of experimentation and artistic success, and then we'll figure out the business side.
那么，现在是电视行业创新的好时机吗？
So it's a good time to be a creative in television?
当然，市场对高质量节目的需求很高。对于独特的原创点子来说，有些这种点子在十年前可能是非常有挑战的，但是现在可能最大的挑战就是怎么立项。任何事情都存在挑战，但是市场有这个胃口。
Absolutely. There's great demand for high-quality work. And for original, distinctive ideas. The kind of idea that would have been super-challenging 10 years ago is now perhaps merely challenging to get going. Anything is challenging, but there's an appetite.
亚马逊的原创视频业务模式是怎样运作的？
How does the business model for original programming work for Amazon?
我们的业务模式相对比较直接，因为我们有订阅服务，所以我们的目标只是要把人们吸引到亚马逊金牌服务（Amazon Prime）上来。如果你订阅了有权观看全部电影和电视节目的视频服务，我们会赠送你全球最大的网商提供的两日免费发货服务。
Our business model is fairly straightforward because we have a subscription service so the goal of our program is simply to attract people to Amazon Prime. You've got a full subscription video service with movies and TV shows and then by the way, we'll give you free two-day shipping on the world's biggest Internet retailer for free.
生产一部电视剧要多少钱？
How much does one of these series cost to produce?
我们拍电视剧不是按集算成本的，但是这些电视剧的成本与同领域的其他电视剧的成本基本持平。
We don't go into the budget per episode, but the cost of the series is the same as the cost of a series at any one of these places.
奈飞（Netflix）公司表示它拍摄《纸牌屋》的投资超过每集250万美元，你们的花费有这么多吗？
So when Netflix (NFLX) reveals it's spending more than $2.5 million per episode on House of Cards, you are spending about the same?
我认为《纸牌屋》的成本可能要高于平均水平，因为他们有凯文o史派西这种大牌和大卫o芬奇这样的大导演。另外我想《女子监狱》（Orange is the New Black ）、《傲骨贤妻》（The Good Wife）、《博斯》和《美国谍梦》（The Americans）这几部剧和《纸牌屋》基本上可以列在同一阵线。但不管拍一部精品电视剧的成本是多少，对我们来说都是安全范围。
You know, I think House of Cards may be higher than average because they have [actor] Kevin Spacey and [director] David Fincher. I suspect that Orange is the New Black and The Good Wife and Bosch and The Americans are all in the same basket. Whatever premium cable broadcast budget is, that's a safe range for us.
目前亚马逊工作室一共在生产多少节目？
How many shows does Amazon Studios currently have in production?
我们有五个儿童节目和五个成人节目，也就是说我们正在生产的节目有十个，而且我们还有些试播剧。我们刚刚拍了一部由惠特o斯蒂尔曼执导、在巴黎摄制的试播剧《四海为家》（The Cosmopolitans），长度有半个小时。另外我们还刚刚拍摄了另一部很精彩的试播剧《上帝之手》（Hand of God），主演是朗o普尔曼和达娜o德拉尼，导演是《末日之战》（ World War Z ）和《死囚之舞》（Monster's Ball）的导演马克o弗雷斯特。之后，我们还会推出更多的试播剧。
Would you say this is a significant investment for Amazon?
为什么你觉得这对亚马逊是一笔意义重大的投资？
We've put out 24 pilots in the last year, which is more than a typical broadcast network will do per year for prime time for sure. We're busy because we don't have a slate, a lineup. Maybe in a few years we can pull it back a little bit.
去年我们一共生产了24部试播节目，甚至比一家普通的电视台为全年的黄金时段准备的节目还多。我们非常忙，因为我们没有自己的演员阵容。可能几年内我们就会收回一部分投资。
Why does this make sense for Amazon?
拍电视剧对亚马逊的意义是什么？
Because it's all about providing value for customers, making the service feel unique and distinctive, and having a relationship with customers where they are coming back ... Part of the purpose of original content is to get people to really engage with the service.
拍电视剧是为了向顾客提供价值，让顾客觉得我们的服务是独特的，同时可以与顾客建立一种关系，让他们还会回来……生产原创内容的另一个目标是吸引顾客加入这项服务。
So Amazon crowdsources its shows. What do you want to tweak about that process?
亚马逊通过众包的方法在做电视剧，那么在这个过程中你最想调整的部分是什么？
I want to tweak nothing about that process! It allows us to be a lot more experimental. Kudos to everyone who has a success ordering straight to series, but I would think that if you were going to order everything straight to series, it probably constrains you a little bit in terms of who you are realistically going to work with. You'd probably have a shorter list.
在这个过程中我什么也不想调整，因为它让我们可以有更多实验性的东西。虽然有人通过直接向电视剧公司订购整部电视剧也获得了成功，但是我认为，如果你直接从电视剧公司订购整部剧集的话，它可能限制了你实际上能够与谁合作。你的选择范围可能会更小。
What you really want in the on-demand environment, which is different than the broadcast environment, is you need to find people who really like the show enough to seek it out. You need to really want to watch the show in modern TV. It's not about changing the channel anywhere, or just seeing what's on. It's not good enough to be good-ish.
需求至上的环境与广播环境很不同，在需求至上的环境下，你真正想要的是找到的确非常喜欢这部剧的人，只有非常喜欢的人才会费力从众多资源中把它找出来看。观众必须得非常希望在现代化的电视上看到这部剧，而不能产生想换频道的欲望或者只是简单看看这是什么节目就算了。现在一部拍得“还挺好”的电视剧是远远不够的。
We can do a better job getting insight into whether there's a pocket of people who are really interested in the show. A while ago you had to focus more on breadth of enthusiasm rather than depth of enthusiasm. That means a show like Transparent really works in this environment. There are shows in the past that were not as distinctive but universally palatable that would have been valuable, but today for us would not be valuable.
现在我们可以更好地了解是否有一部分人对这部剧非常感兴趣。就在不久之前，你还得更重视观众的热情的广度，而不是观众热情的深度。这意味着像《透明》这种电视剧可以在这种环境下表现得很好。过去有些剧集虽然不是很独特，但符合所有人的口味。这种剧在过去可能很有价值，但今天对我们来说就不那么有价值了。
How big are your audiences?
你们的观众群有多大？
Well, we don't disclose, but we see that often our shows are the top shows on the service right after they're released. You see Alpha House go to No. 1 for awhile, and that means it is playing a meaningful role for the service as a whole.
我们没有披露这类数据，但是我们的电视剧经常一经推出，就在亚马逊服务中成为收看最多的剧集之一。比如《阿尔法屋》曾一度登上亚马逊收视榜的榜收，意味着它在亚马逊的整体服务中扮演了一个重要的角色。
What's ahead?
你们下一步打算做什么？
Well we'll see a couple more pilots, and then in the fall these series will premier. And then there'll be a new round of pilots. So far we haven't released our shows all at the same time [like Netflix has done], but we might want to try it. It's complicated because you can't really test it. There is some enthusiasm in the press and with customers for doing it all at once, so we're going to take a look at it before we debut our shows this fall.
下一步我们会继续推出几部试播剧，到了秋季，这些剧集就会陆续上线。然后我们还会推出新一轮的试播剧。到目前为止我们还没有（像奈飞那样）把我们所有的电视剧都在同一时间推出，但是我们可能想尝试一下。这种做法比较复杂，因为你没法真正进行测试。媒体和顾客对这种做法都抱有一些热情，所以我们在今年秋季这些剧集上线之前会研究一下。