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posted by martyb on Tuesday August 20 2019, @05:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the Lights!-Camera!-Money!!! dept.

Apple reportedly ups TV spending by $5 billion to compete with Amazon and Netflix

Apple has reportedly committed an eye-popping $5 billion dollars more to its original video content budget in a bid to better compete with Amazon, Disney, HBO, Netflix, and Hulu, according to a new report from the Financial Times.

The company had originally set aside $1 billion for former Sony Pictures Television executives Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg to court well-known creators and Hollywood stars to its platform. According to the FT, that number has jumped to $6 billion as more shows have moved through production and budgets have ballooned.

One production — a high-profile comedy-drama about morning television featuring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carrell called The Morning Show — has cost Apple hundreds of millions of dollars, the FT reports. Separately, Bloomberg reports that Apple is spending $300 million on just the first two seasons of the show.

That makes it more expensive on a per episode basis than the final season of HBO's Game of Thrones, which enjoyed a budget of roughly $15 million per episode and ranks as the most expensive season of television ever.

Also at 9to5Mac and Cord Cutters News.

Previously: Apple Investing $1 Billion in Acquiring and Producing TV Shows
Apple Inks Deal With Ex Machina Maker A24 Studio to Create Original Films


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday August 20 2019, @04:01PM (1 child)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday August 20 2019, @04:01PM (#882643) Journal

    Apple was reported recently to have $100 billion in cash. That is a lot of money. They can swamp many smaller industries with that kind of money. What they should do, if they must get into streaming, is acquire Netflix. Netflix has a lot of money, too, and has been snapping up top talent in the industry for their own productions. But the really valuable asset Netflix has is all the years' long experience in analyzing viewer habits. They not only invented the phenomenon of binge viewing, but have had a lot of time to dissect exactly what works and what doesn't about plot lines, pacing, scheduling, what women like to watch vs. what men like to watch, what Millennials prefer vs. Baby Boomers, etc. All that information gives Netflix a very important advantage over Hulu, HBO, Disney+, and AppleTV.

    Netflix would gain, too, because there's a lot of overlap between their customers. Having a seamless experience across Apple's music catalogue, devices, and other platforms would create the holy grail that Microsoft always wanted, but failed miserably at, and what Google would love to have.

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    Washington DC delenda est.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @06:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @06:46PM (#882720)

    to quote (in reply to gazing the crystal ball):
    "if you only look above you will miss the riches below" (magnet:?xt=urn:btih:4EE35200B36DC88631E4EBBA67DD5D58071E160C)