Apple Spending $6 Billion on Original Content for Apple TV+ [Update: Launch Coming in Nov., Price Could Be $9.99/Month]

[GizmoDVD]

Too bad they can't spend any of that cash on the Mac division. Would be nice to have quicker production and lower costs on the products we need to create content! The Mac Pro is a joke, can't believe it's taken so long to turn this thing.

Shame Kodak doesn’t spend money on printed film either.
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I think they are in way over their head here. They are going to blow through so much money before figuring it out (if they ever do). Their content so far... stinks. I wouldn't watch it if it were free.

I think TBS has repeats of THE BIG BANG THEORY for you to watch.

 

[Boatboy24]

The more I see of streaming services, the better FIOS looks.

 

[Vasilioskn]

Why are they doing the plus sign with everything now? Disney plus, Apple plus, ?

 

[Naraxus]

Heh. Leave it to Apple to overprice & underdeliver. Zero compelling shows and they want to charge $10?

El oh el

 

[btrach144]

At $10 for this and $7 for Disney, I could drop Netflix and still save money. I’d get the adult and child programs.

Now I just need to drop Comcast for cable.

 

[D.T.]

With many of the classic “staple” shows that made Netflix’s streaming business drawing to a close, an astounding and unsustainable rate of cash burn, dwindling third party content, and ever-increasing competition (usually from former content licensors), Netflix is at its weakest point now that it’s been in for quite some time. Should a downward spiral begin, they’ve really set themselves up for a quick one with the current state of their business.

Meanwhile, Apple has enough cash to drop $6B on original content and not bat an eyelash. Even assuming Apple TV+ isn’t a smash hit, that’s not their only business; they have other offerings to fall back on. Netflix pretty much doesn’t at this point, save for their DVD business that’s been mostly forgotten about.

A recent episode of The Watch (podcast) had an excellent discussion of exactly this. You've got Amazon and Apple with primary businesses outside of content creation [for their streaming services], traditional premium providers doing well and getting all those first run 3rd party films and high profile original content (also backed by large parent corporations). Netflix is currently in a pretty precarious situation, especially when they're getting down to the major subscriber attraction being a show that's on a yearly - at best - seasonal release.

Ripe for acquisition? That would certainly backfill some content volume (for Apple) and tap into some pretty neat studio resources.

I suspect they'll come up with some kind of decent package offering too, since they offer other services and are able to simplify billing.

 

[Naraxus]

Content is about MONEY which is what Apple has. It’s also about reach, which Apple has 1.4B screened devices.

No. Content is about QUALITY, not money which is something Apple does not have. You can have all the money in the world but that doesn't mean it's going to succeed if you don't have quality content. Nothing they have shown, announced or is rumored about is in any way compelling.

Look, we all know you're in the bag for Apple but is it possible for you to admit Apple has thus far failed?

 

[mnsportsgeek]

$9.99? Dead. On. Arrival.

 

[cknibbs]

I’m excited for more content... but this will not be a monthly service I pay for. I’ll probably wait for a lot of content, subscribe for a few months to catch up and then cancel

 

[Ghost31]

Nobody has even seen their shows yet and people are already assuming they know enough to say it’s a flop. This won’t age well

 

[chunker]

The iPhone will fail.
The iPad will fail.
The Apple Watch will fail.
The AirPods will fail.
Apple Music will fail.
Everything Apple does is gonna fail!!!!

While they're not perfect, they wouldn't spend Billions without testing the waters and analyzing the market. Yes the streaming platforms have become more segregated. But Apple will probably bundle this with their other services. They made a strategic (and smart) move by nesting the Apple TV app outside the Apple universe. This will help be a gateway for perhaps non-Apple users. It's available on multiple platforms and devices which are millions if not Billions of other possible users.

The content they're going to provide will be of high quality right from the start just based on the production, writing, acting they're released. More content will soon follow with other originals that won't cost as much to produce as it won't rely on A+ Hollywood power.

It won't be a knockout from the start. It will however gain traction over the years and grow a sizeable market share.

I think that it will dominate the market IF (big IF) it offers catalog content from their Apple Store library. They have a larger library of tv shows and films than any streaming service available. IF they add even a fraction of this content they will dominate the market as they sign exclusive deals with tv and movie studios like they have with Apple Music.

 

[maxfromdenmark]

I hope that Apple has “one more thing” in sleeve.

 

[Brandhouse]

The cost for "The Morning Show" has apparently exceeded the $15 million per episode that HBO spent on the final season of "Game of Thrones."

Talk about pi$$ing money into the wind. That's just ludicrous

 

[dogslobber]

Funded by iPhone sales primarily

Yes but they’re reinvesting to grow other parts of the business. The problem I see is that TV series investment is a massive undertaking and not something Apple has any experience of. When Tim is watching the new TV programs, where else will suffer as he takes his eye off the Mac updates?

 

[Macalway]

I don't see how this number could be correct. Just seems way out there.

Over-budget I can understand, this I can't. I'd really like to see a breakdown on what they spent this on.

Or this number is just wrong.

 

[Abazigal]

“Apple is considering releasing three episodes of TV shows at once followed by weekly installments.“

— ugh. hate this model. drop it all at once.

I wonder if releasing their episodes all at once is starting to backfire to Netflix. Sure, it’s great for me when I get to finish the entire season of a new show over the weekend, but this is precisely what is contributing to the reportedly high churn rate where people just subscribe for one month to catch up on new content and then terminate their subscription afterwards.

Also, I don’t know if it’s just me, but when I am faced with 8-12 episodes of a show and I want to quickly finish the series, I just start scrubbing through the boring parts in a bid to get to the ending faster.

Having a weekly dose of a few shows you follow closely (like black lightning and Star Trek: discovery” seems more manageable.

I believe Apple video is simply there to promote their TV app and help sell subscriptions of other streaming services. Not that Disney+ or Hulu needs any help selling itself, but the idea is really to have a bunch of streaming services contributing content to a centralised app so the user doesn’t need to keep hopping between multiple such apps.

So, Video+ doesn’t need to follow the same business model of Netflix. Netflix wants you using their service as much as possible, hence the use of original shows to draw users in and older content that they can binge on to kill time.

Lastly, I think releasing their new shows more gradually, as well as moving get an annual billing model, might better help stabilise Netflix’s subscriber revenue, since you incentivise viewers to stick around for the long term, rather than subscribe every now and then.

Look, we all know you're in the bag for Apple but is it possible for you to admit Apple has thus far failed?

Note: I know this wasn’t aimed at me, but I thought I would just chime in regardless.

So based on what metric exactly?

I mean, if we want to use past examples, the Apple Watch admittedly wasn’t very fantastic when it first launched, but Apple was able to quickly iterate on the fly and pivot to health and fitness tracking, and the Apple Watch is practically unmatched in the wearables market today.

Apple Music has gone from “it will never gain traction” to beating Spotify in certain markets like the US, to the point that Spotify is clearly growing desperate and starting all manner of lawsuits against Apple.

The iPad has gone from “you can’t get work done on it” to “you can’t use it to do something very specific that most of the user population has likely never heard of”.

Apple News is apparently on a slow burn as well, but you know that Apple wouldn’t be releasing all these services if they didn’t think there was something meaningful and differentiated they could offer relative to the other companies already out there.

Meanwhile, companies like Fitbit are imploding, while Netflix and Spotify still haven’t turned a profit. I don’t know - this forum seems to have an obsession with profit-less market share and companies that have no clear path to sustainability.

I believe in Apple’s capabilities as a tastemaker. Apple Music, Video+, Apple Arcade, News, Apple Card. Apple is in it for the long haul, and the real battle is only just beginning.

 

[takasugi]

... and Gates making sure he would not derail from his vision.

I honestly doubt that show biz would be SJ choice to change the world. It does not feel right for a company that excelled making product, an example of excellence in design and technology. But who knows.

Let’s see how it goes.

SJ already did that with Pixar.

 

[ipedro]

I’m fully on board with Apple releasing this service. Apple has always been about producing the entire experience — “the whole widget” as Steve Jobs used to say. Early in Apple’s history, that meant the hardware, the OS and excellent software, whether it be iLife or iWork. Today, Apple’s devices are used predominantly to watch video content. It only makes sense that they produce TV shows.

That said, I don’t know if $9.99 is going to fly with consumers. Disney+ has a massive back catalogue of the best content in TV and film history for $6.99. Apple has to undercut that. $4.99 is appropriate for a standalone AppleTV+. However, I still think that Apple can use TV+ as a way to claw away a substantial market share from Spotify. Sell TV+Music for $9.99 and it’ll be a massive hit. Apple Music will become the new market leader, taking TV+ along for the ride.

 

[citysnaps]

So make a case for it then. And don't say it's to strengthen "the ecosystem".

Oh heck no. I’m just here for the grins and yucks watching all the armchair media executives and programming specialists here pontificating and wringing their hands about how Apple is blowing it. Apple could make a series about that!

 

[Macalway]

It is very interesting though. Original media content by Apple on this scale.

I just can't believe what i'm seeing. When all these new massive services like Netflix launch, how can they furnish talent? Talent doesn't grow on trees (or maybe it does), and they can't just throw money at it and say 'make us laugh and cry'. Money goes so far.

But it's money. Crap, i'm in the wrong business.

 

[dannyyankou]

Rocky had a budget of $1 million. Quality, not quantity.

 

[Rogifan]

... and Gates making sure he would not derail from his vision.

I honestly doubt that show biz would be SJ choice to change the world. It does not feel right for a company that excelled making product, an example of excellence in design and technology. But who knows.

Let’s see how it goes.

What was Gates vision exactly?

No. Content is about QUALITY, not money which is something Apple does not have. You can have all the money in the world but that doesn't mean it's going to succeed if you don't have quality content. Nothing they have shown, announced or is rumored about is in any way compelling.

Look, we all know you're in the bag for Apple but is it possible for you to admit Apple has thus far failed?

That’s opinion not fact.

 

[ipponrg]

I don’t know - this forum seems to have an obsession with profit-less market share and companies that have no clear path to sustainability.

Why would consumers care about profit-more markets? Why would consumers care about sustainability? The fact of all the metric points you pointed out profit and sustainability kind of shows why you don’t understand nor will you ever understand half of the complaints.

On the topic of Apple TV+, they can easily burn thru a large chunk of their cash and not have much to show from it. It’s why there is much skepticism about this service.

 

[Macalway]

Rocky had a budget of $1 million. Quality, not quantity.

Yes but Netflix is a Global talent mine. If it was just the US and Europe the plan couldn't be sustained, but there's huge untapped resources in Asia, and everywhere else.

 

[Star Brood]

I'll definitely do the free trial, but unless they bundle this with Apple Music and/or Apple Arcade they're not getting any subscription from me.