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Fraggle Rock is Coming to Apple TV+ After Apple Purchases Streaming Rights for Old Episodes and Orders Reboot

Wow. Glad to hear. I was bummed the Fraggle Rock movie that was in development never happened. Now we get a new series, with a mix of solid new Muppeteers and retuning talent. Sounds good to me.
 
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Baumi said:
My guess is that Apple's interest in older shows is very much dependent on the going rate of the content. Back when Netflix started out, streaming rights were comparatively cheap. Now, with so many competing services, they're probably so expensive that producing and permanently owning original content might make more economic sense than paying for temporary licenses for existing shows.

Should that market situation ever change, I'm pretty sure that Apple's stance would change, as well. (Or maybe they're already in the process of buying up shows for a back catalogue for the service and are just keeping up their poker face until the official announcement.)
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It’s in the article. Apple knows that content is being consolidated under its license owners’ own streaming services. Netflix knows this too which is why they made a play for original content when that became apparent.

Netflix type services with content from many different license holders is a dying breed. Netflix itself won’t exist as it does today a few years from now when their licensing agreements expire and all the streaming services are established. Disney will keep their own content for Disney+, NBC will keep their content for Peacock, HBO will keep their content for HBO Max, CBS will keep their content for CBS All Access and so on. Whatever is left isn’t worth trying to build a catalogue around.

Apple will bring in archival content if they’re producing a reboot or continuation of that show. Fraggle Rock makes sense since they’re making new episodes. It makes sense to have the back catalogue as well. In that same vein, it would make sense to get rights to the original Amazing Stories. Other than that, Apple is doing a great job building their own properties. It’s only been 6 months in and they already have 22 shows and 4 feature films with more dropping in a few days and countless more in the second half of the year.
 
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I remember reading this news like two months ago. Am I back in the matrix and don’t know it?
 
Baumi said:
My guess is that Apple's interest in older shows is very much dependent on the going rate of the content. Back when Netflix started out, streaming rights were comparatively cheap. Now, with so many competing services, they're probably so expensive that producing and permanently owning original content might make more economic sense than paying for temporary licenses for existing shows.

Should that market situation ever change, I'm pretty sure that Apple's stance would change, as well. (Or maybe they're already in the process of buying up shows for a back catalogue for the service and are just keeping up their poker face until the official announcement.)
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So you think Apple is making content purchasing decisions based on the price? They just paid $70 million for an exclusive premiere of a new Tom Hanks movie. They won’t even own it. They have billions to spend.
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aaronhead14 said:
Man, so much disparity with the Jim Henson content these days. Muppets goes to Disney, Sesame Street goes to Warner/HBO, and now Apple has some of their stuff. Kinda strange.
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When they decide to have all the Henson universes collide, it’s going to be a licensing disaster just like the Spider-Man and XMen movies caught between Sony and Marvel/Disney.
 
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ipedro said:
It’s in the article. Apple knows that content is being consolidated under its license owners’ own streaming services. Netflix knows this too which is why they made a play for original content when that became apparent.

Netflix type services with content from many different license holders is a dying breed. Netflix itself won’t exist as it does today a few years from now when their licensing agreements expire and all the streaming services are established. Disney will keep their own content for Disney+, NBC will keep their content for Peacock, HBO will keep their content for HBO Max, CBS will keep their content for CBS All Access and so on. Whatever is left isn’t worth trying to build a catalogue around.

Apple will bring in archival content if they’re producing a reboot or continuation of that show. Fraggle Rock makes sense since they’re making new episodes. It makes sense to have the back catalogue as well. In that same vein, it would make sense to get rights to the original Amazing Stories. Other than that, Apple is doing a great job building their own properties. It’s only been 6 months in and they already have 22 shows and 4 feature films with more dropping in a few days and countless more in the second half of the year.
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And of those many are very high quality. The beastie doc, morning show, defending Jacob, Mythic Quest are all outstanding. Impressive that it’s still in it‘s infancy. Apple has come out swinging!
 
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Kabeyun said:
Keep it coming, Apple. The new stuff is fine, sometimes excellent, but build that back catalogue! I’ll buy a drink to whoever the cat was that changed Cook’s stance on this.
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I’m wondering if this maybe kind of thing was always on the roadmap.

Apple has had a number of things where they start out with a more restricted version - like, say, the one-button mouse - and then once support for that is firmly established, then they open the access a bit more. In the case of the mouse (which is likely a weak example - Steve probably really did want just one button - but its easy example to grasp), requiring all the software to work with one button, established a pattern, then the addition of multiple-button mice allowed additional tricks, but didn’t require everyone to switch to multi-button mice, because there was a huge amount of support for single-button mice already written.

Similarly, if TV+ had launched with a few dozen recognizable existing TV shows and their originals, the tone and expectations would be different, and Apple’s original shows would have gotten lost in the noise. People would be debating whether “Friends” (or whatever show) was a worthy reason to subscribe, instead of being focused on the merits of “The Morning Show”, “See”, or my favorite, “Mythic Quest”. So, launch with just the originals, but have personnel actively considering what shows they might want to buy, and researching what shows they can get.

I suspect they’ll acquire additional things at a slow rate, if they feel the show in question has something to add, and they can actually get it (many shows are being consolidated under their own company’s streaming services). Unless they go nuts and decide to buy an entire service. Unlikely, but possible.
 
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I'm so confused! Muppets! Muppets! But which one is Beaker??!


Tim Beaker.jpg
 
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PC_tech said:
Sesame Street isn't his content.
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I mean, I guess you’re technically correct, since it was produced by Sesame Workshop rather than The Jim Henson Company. But the Sesame Street characters are indeed Jim Henson-created Muppets. And yes, they’re even called Muppets (Disney lets them use the word even though it’s their trademark now).
 
Wow, Apple have bough the rights to Fraggle Rock. AppleTV+ are really going to be upsetting the market e.g. Netflix with this one. More material to AppleTV+ that's do nothing to make me consider a subscription as being a good thing.
 
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CarlJ said:
I’m wondering if this maybe kind of thing was always on the roadmap.

Apple has had a number of things where they start out with a more restricted version - like, say, the one-button mouse - and then once support for that is firmly established, then they open the access a bit more. In the case of the mouse (which is likely a weak example - Steve probably really did want just one button - but its easy example to grasp), requiring all the software to work with one button, established a pattern, then the addition of multiple-button mice allowed additional tricks, but didn’t require everyone to switch to multi-button mice, because there was a huge amount of support for single-button mice already written.

Similarly, if TV+ had launched with a few dozen recognizable existing TV shows and their originals, the tone and expectations would be different, and Apple’s original shows would have gotten lost in the noise. People would be debating whether “Friends” (or whatever show) was a worthy reason to subscribe, instead of being focused on the merits of “The Morning Show”, “See”, or my favorite, “Mythic Quest”. So, launch with just the originals, but have personnel actively considering what shows they might want to buy, and researching what shows they can get.

I suspect they’ll acquire additional things at a slow rate, if they feel the show in question has something to add, and they can actually get it (many shows are being consolidated under their own company’s streaming services). Unless they go nuts and decide to buy an entire service. Unlikely, but possible.
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Could be, but I’m skeptical. When there was talk of Apple acquiring Friends Cook said, “It’s not what Apple TV+ is about, it’s about original programming.” And that was on a shareholder call, so very much on the record. Then again, he wouldn’t be the first corporate exec to mislead and then surprise, but that statement’s pretty unequivocal. Could be Cook playing 3D chess, but my hunch, just like with iPhone screen sizes and maybe mouse buttons, is that he saw what he needed to do and changed his mind. I agree that they’ll be selective, but now that the cork is out of the bottle we’ll be seeing more content grabs. (I hope; I’d like them to compete on this.)
 
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aaronhead14 said:
But the Sesame Street characters are indeed Jim Henson-created Muppets. And yes, they’re even called Muppets (Disney lets them use the word even though it’s their trademark now).
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Henson did not create all the characters, that’s just flat out wrong.
 
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