It was a day we had been looking forward to for a long time: March 14th was the day that MotoGP Unlimited was to be launched on Amazon Prime. The series was due to be available in 170 different territories around the world.
As midnight passed in Europe, social media lit up with responses to the series. And unfortunately, those responses were very far from positive. Not because of the content of the documentary series, but because of the editorial decisions apparently made by Amazon Prime. In the UK and US, the only version available was the dubbed version, where actors have voiced over everyone speaking in their own language. In Australia, India, and some Southeast Asian countries, MotoGP Unlimited was not available at all.
The problems reported seem to be a result of decisions taken by Amazon, rather than either Dorna or The MEDIAPRO Studio, the producers of the show. But the process by which these decisions were made is very hard to fathom.
MotoGP Limited
In most territories, particularly in most European countries, the series is offered with a range of choices. In my own case (based in The Netherlands, and with an Amazon account with an address here), I have a choice of the original audio – where each of the participants speaks their own language, with English subtitles – or a number of different dubbed languages: English with audio description (where all speakers are dubbed in English and the action is described, for the visually impaired), Spanish, Italian, French, and German. In addition, there are multiple options for subtitles.
However, for anyone based in the UK or the US, those options do not appear, according to reports from people in those countries. There, the only option is the English dubbed version, and the choice of subtitles.
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