iTunes Chief Eddy Cue: Apple Execs Don't Make Notes on Apple TV+ Scripts

[MacRumors]

Following a recent interview with The Times, Apple iTunes chief Eddy Cue sat down with GQ to share further thoughts on Apple Music and Apple TV+, Apple's upcoming streaming television service.

According to Cue, Apple plans to differentiate its streaming service by offering "the best shows," such as "For All Mankind," an upcoming space drama from Ronald D. Moore that explores what would have happened had the Soviet Union landed on the moon first and had the space race never ended.

Cue says that Apple worked with "the best people in the business" to create a show with a lot of attention to detail. "Like, we took the Houston control panel. We were able to get a lot of the original stuff. We didn't create fake ones," said Cue.

Contrary to some reports, Cue says that Apple executives have not been involved in script editing and have not had input on the Apple TV+ shows in an editorial capacity.

"I saw the comments that myself and Tim were writing notes on the scripts and whatever," says Cue. "There's never been one note passed from us on scripts, that I can assure you. We leave the folks [alone] who know they're doing."

"I can assure you that was 100 per cent false. He didn't say, 'Don't be so mean.' He didn't say anything about a script."

Cue says that Apple is aiming to create shows for everyone, from children to mature adults. "We're going to do a lot of different shows," he said. Apple will have television shows that aren't family friendly, such as "The Morning Show" with Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston.

"The Reese Witherspoon-Jennifer Aniston show [The Morning Show is a workplace drama set behind the scenes of breakfast TV]. It's a show about women in the workplace and some of the issues that happen to them are definitely not appropriate for you to watch with an eight-year-old."

As for the show that he's most excited about, Cue says that he can't wait for "Dickinson," a show about the life of poet Emily Dickinson that stars Hailee Steinfeld.

Cue also commented on the upcoming music lyric syncing feature in iOS 13, which scrolls through lyrics as a song plays.

"It just takes an inordinate amount of money to try to do this and to try to figure out how to do this the right way," says Cue. And while Apple is naturally starting with the most popular tracks, Cue says it doesn't intend to stop there. The plan is to add synced-up lyrics to every song in the Apple Music library.

"I honestly don't know the exact number of people who are working on it. In our ideal world it would be zero because we'd get them all from the labels. But we discovered that it wasn't going to work. In general it takes hundreds of people to do.

Cue's full interview can be read over at GQ, and for a rundown of all of the TV shows Apple has in the works, make sure to check out our guide. For details on how the Apple TV+ service will work, we have a guide for that too.

Article Link: iTunes Chief Eddy Cue: Apple Execs Don't Make Notes on Apple TV+ Scripts

 

[ipedro]

I’m an old school Apple fan, way before Apple became mainstream but I’m really excited for Apple’s services, and most of all AppleTV+. Apple has evolved throughout its history and I embrace where they’re going.

Apple has always been about not just building the hardware but also the best experiences you could have with that hardware. Yesterday’s apps are today’s services. Apple products are heavily used by the general public for consuming content. And as they’ve always done, they’re producing the best of what can be experienced on Apple hardware, providing a guideline and then letting talented third parties take it and both meet and exceed that bar.

 

[BootsWalking]

I don't think I'll ever get used to Apple being an entertainment show creator. Just doesn't compute.

 

[farewelwilliams]

always hated the primetime shows on broadcast tv. you can tell those scripts were driven by analytics and group studies.

 

[Ishayu]

Kind of ironic that Apple are doing this big number out of curated news content and Hollywood and magazines and all that, only to be lied about on repeat.

Fake news is real.

 

[DoctorTech]

I am looking forward to, and have high hope / expectations from Apple TV+. I believe there is a market for high quality content and I think Apple will do it right.

 

[MarcNBarrett]

I don't know if Apple will be able to beat a company like Amazon, which is pouring billions of dollars into TV productions like a Lord of the Rings-related TV series and a TV series based on Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan books.

 

[gugy]

I hope ATV+ has the price and content to compete with Netflix/Amazon.

 

[frou]

The MR writers enjoy posting pictures of smug Eddy staring into our souls

 

[ipedro]

I don't know if Apple will be able to beat a company like Amazon, which is pouring billions of dollars into TV productions like a Lord of the Rings-related TV series and a TV series based on Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan books.

Apple doesn't have to "beat" Amazon, nor do they have to put Netflix out of business. CBS didn't beat NBC but they've remained in business side by side for almost a century. There's room for more than one streamer.

Apple just needs to produce high quality content that leads people to using the TV app which in turn will lead to subscriptions to partner channels and ultimately become the place to watch TV.

Amazon will be smart to join in and list their content in the AppleTV app. Amazon's model is different than Apple's. TV content is a perk of having Prime which drives sales in their store. Having easy access to Amazon content on Apple devices is actually a benefit to both companies.

 

[bluespark]

I hope ATV+ has the price and content to compete with Netflix/Amazon.

I'm not sure competing with Netflix/Amazon is entirely the goal, except as to the individual series themselves. While both of those services feature tons of content from multiple sources, Apple is reportedly planning only to launch several series and is not planning a content catalog beyond that. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but that would be a fairly different model.

 

[djcerla]

I don't know if Apple will be able to beat a company like Amazon, which is pouring billions of dollars into TV productions like a Lord of the Rings-related TV series and a TV series based on Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan books.

I have Prime and it’s the triumph of mediocre and cheap. Apple can do so much better.

 

[coumerelli]

I don't think I'll ever get used to Apple being an entertainment show creator. Just doesn't compute.

I see what you did there

 

[ipedro]

I'm not sure competing with Netflix/Amazon is entirely the goal, except as to the individual series themselves. While both of those services feature tons of content from multiple sources, Apple is reportedly planning only to launch several series and is not planning a content catalog beyond that. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but that would be a fairly different model.

You misunderstood. Apple will be producing content for AppleTV+ indefinitely, going forward. What they said is that they're not trying to beat Netflix on the quantity of shows, only that they intend to ensure that each one is of high production value. What was said is that they'll be launching one a month, so 12 series a year. Their TV production house is a permanent new division of Apple.

 

[robjulo]

Get your pom-poms out.

I’m an old school Apple fan, way before Apple became mainstream but I’m really excited for Apple’s services, and most of all AppleTV+. Apple has evolved throughout its history and I embrace where they’re going.

Apple has always been about not just building the hardware but also the best experiences you could have with that hardware. Yesterday’s apps are today’s services. Apple products are heavily used by the general public for consuming content. And as they’ve always done, they’re producing the best of what can be experienced on Apple hardware, providing a guideline and then letting talented third parties take it and both meet and exceed that bar.

 

[bluespark]

You misunderstood. Apple will be producing content for AppleTV+ indefinitely, going forward. What they said is that they're not trying to beat Netflix on the quantity of shows, only that they intend to ensure that each one is of high production value. What was said is that they'll be launching one a month, so 12 series a year. Their TV production house is a permanent new division of Apple.

I didn't misunderstand, but maybe I was unclear. Netflix and Amazon both feature lots of content from other sources; that doesn't appear to be the model Apple is pursuing. Apple's focus on creating a small number of series in no way means it won't be producing additional series in the future.

 

[yaxomoxay]

that explores what would have happened had the Soviet Union landed on the moon first and had the space race never ended.

I'd use speculates.

 

[AdeFowler]

Synced lyrics exist in Deezer, Amazon Music etc, as well as the recently acquired by Apple, Shazam. Am I missing something?

 

[JetTester]

"Like, we took the Houston control panel. We were able to get a lot of the original stuff. We didn't create fake ones," said Cue.

So, is that why NASA is spending millions to restore the Apollo 11 control room?

 

[Rob_2811]

Apple doesn't have to "beat" Amazon, nor do they have to put Netflix out of business. CBS didn't beat NBC but they've remained in business side by side for almost a century. There's room for more than one streamer.

Apple just needs to produce high quality content that leads people to using the TV app which in turn will lead to subscriptions to partner channels and ultimately become the place to watch TV.

Amazon will be smart to join in and list their content in the AppleTV app. Amazon's model is different than Apple's. TV content is a perk of having Prime which drives sales in their store. Having easy access to Amazon content on Apple devices is actually a benefit to both companies.

Why? They have their own streaming TV platform that has 34 million active users.

 

[biting-mammal]

Why do they have hundreds of people working on syncing lyrics in Apple Music?! Surely there’s something better those people could be doing - does anyone care that much about whether the lyrics are synced or not? I don’t.

 

[ipedro]

I didn't misunderstand, but maybe I was unclear. Netflix and Amazon both feature lots of content from other sources; that doesn't appear to be the model Apple is pursuing. Apple's focus on creating a small number of series in no way means it won't be producing additional series in the future.

Right. Apple won't be buying existing shows as far as they've been indicating. AppleTV+ will be Apple's own in house TV series. Third party content will however be brought into the TV app through channels, which is pretty smart since it allows other content producers to make money in AppleTV without Apple's deliberate investment which will grow the AppleTV app as the place to watch TV, benefitting Apple and quite possibly dethroning Netflix in the number of users.

 

[lunarworks]

Why do they have hundreds of people working on syncing lyrics in Apple Music?! Surely there’s something better those people could be doing - does anyone care that much about whether the lyrics are synced or not? I don’t.

If those people are trained and specialize in things like text synchronization, then no, there's nothing better they can be doing. Apple's got something like 130,000 employees.

As for myself, I care about lyrics. I'm often terrible at picking them up just by listening. It's an auditory processing thing. Well-synced lyrics can also be useful if they ever plan on adding a karaoke feature to any of their platforms.

 

[Rob_2811]

I have Prime and it’s the triumph of mediocre and cheap. Apple can do so much better.

Amazons content has won three academy awards and seven Emmys, all we've seen from Apple so far is a 30 second trailer and Tim Cook crying on stage with Oprah.

I think its fair to say Apple got a lot to do to do 'much better'.

 

[peletrane]

Cue right on cue with his favorite part of the queue:
"As for the show that he's most excited about, Cue says that he can't wait for "Dickinson," a show about the life of poet Emily Dickinson that stars Hailee Steinfeld. "

Who knew Cue knew about, gulp, you know, literature? LMAO!
I always assumed the only relevant aspect to all this is "content" that can be "consumed" and therefore "monetized"