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from the Watch-Apple-TV-on-your-Apple-TV dept.
Apple will invest heavily in original TV content to try to counter other television and streaming services:
Apple will invest approximately $1 billion in acquiring and producing original TV shows over the next year, according to The Wall Street Journal. The investment could result in as many as 10 new shows, a source told the publication, with the iPhone-maker looking to match the high-quality output of networks like HBO.
The market for this sort of content is already crowded, and both traditional broadcasters and new media are fighting over lucrative deals for original hits. Apple previously focused on renting TV shows and movies through iTunes, but this business has been damaged by the rise of subscription services. The company's share of the movie rental-and-sales market is estimated to have dropped from 50 per cent in 2012 to less than 35 per cent recently.
HBO spent about $2 billion on content in 2016 and Netflix is expected to spend $6 billion on content in 2017.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 17 2017, @03:57PM
Screw that, I think they first need to fix the under-representation of African-Americans among Apple owners. I never see black people with Macbooks, only Millennial hipsters. To fix this, Apple needs to give away free Macbooks to all African-Americans in the country, plus free service and support at the Genius Bar for as long as they keep them. They also need to give free iPhones to all African-Americans, complete with free phone plans. If Apple doesn't do this, then they're obviously not interested in correcting historical injustice and racism.
A quick, rough calculation shows that this should only cost them $40-80B for the hardware, not counting the service and support costs. They can easily afford that.