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.
Related Stories
Roku has refreshed its lineup of TV streaming sticks and boxes, shortly after Apple and Amazon released similar products. Roku now has a device that supports 2160p resolution and high dynamic range:
Roku just announced updates to five of its TV streaming products, as well as a new operating system that marries access to over-the-air TV with video streaming services. The announcements from Roku come after both Apple and Amazon have revealed updates to their own video streaming boxes in recent weeks, with all three companies pushing further into the home with things like 4K, voice control, and improved search functionality.
Roku's low-cost streaming sticks are getting the most interesting updates. The basic Roku streaming stick, which at $49.99 is priced the same as last year's model, is getting a processor update that Roku claims is 50 percent faster. The remote is also getting voice control functionality, along with power and volume buttons to control those functions on your TV set.
Then there's the Roku Streaming Stick Plus, which now supports HDR and 4K Ultra HD. It also has four times the wireless range of the basic stick, which is partly enabled by the wireless module being built directly into the cable, rather than the stick itself. The idea is that moving it away from the television reduces interference. This one, which effectively replaces last year's Roku Premiere 4K box, will cost $69.99.
Also at Ars Technica and Roku.
Previously: Roku OS 7: Developer Highlights
Roku Media Player Maker Seeking IPO
Related: MPAA Chief Focuses Attention on the Kodi Platform
Kodi Panic in the UK and Popularity in North America
Kodi Add-on Library "TVAddons" Disappears After Lawsuit
Apple Investing $1 Billion in Acquiring and Producing TV Shows
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
(Score: 2) by lx on Thursday August 17 2017, @10:10AM (3 children)
I can't wait!
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Thursday August 17 2017, @10:18AM (2 children)
I'd be very interested in what kind of product placement we can expect to see in the shows produced.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:17PM
Not what you'd think. It's all PCs and Androids with everyone bitching about how they don't work.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday August 17 2017, @03:14PM
I hear they are beta testing blipverts.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by c0lo on Thursday August 17 2017, @10:25AM (3 children)
https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=21825¬e=&title=Nanotube+spider+silk+article+is+a+dupe+from+2015. [soylentnews.org]
Really really now - isn't a good time to implement a "pre-editing comments section"? Not the greensite's Firehose with modding the stories, but something to crowd-source the editorializing process.
I don't know, something like the "Soylenter Mechanical editor" - not editors by themselves, but can contribute with corrections, additions, dupe signalling, "this is big, should be breaking, push it sooner".
Chime in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by c0lo on Thursday August 17 2017, @10:26AM (2 children)
Disregard the above (delete it if you can), wrong story!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by AssCork on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:45PM (1 child)
And here I thought one of Apples shows was going to involve giant spider-demons that shot graphene bullets and caught planes in carbon nanotube webs...
/me closes apple.com tab
Whew, that was close!
Just popped-out of a tight spot. Came out mostly clean, too.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:55PM
Only because I commented on the wrong story, it doesn't mean what you thought won't happen.
By how well the world fairs today, I'd rather bet it will happen.
Better safe than sorry.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:17PM (2 children)
Apple has $250 billion in cash. They could buy the entire content industry, music included, and barely feel it. If they really wanted to they could blow everyone else out of the water by snapping up all the talent.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by AssCork on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:48PM (1 child)
I'm pretty sure Disney would stop them.
Hopefully the matter would be decided peacefully with giant robots [soylentnews.org] fighting [imdb.com] in a remote location [gps-latitude-longitude.com]
Just popped-out of a tight spot. Came out mostly clean, too.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:52PM
I can't even imagine what shape that battle would take, Micky Mouse and Goofy taking on the Teletubbies?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:14PM (5 children)
I hope Apple adequately represents the African-American community in its TV shows. At the present, African-Americans are grossly under-represented in the American media.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @03:16PM
Black programming matters!
(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.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday August 17 2017, @05:01PM
Best i've seen recently is Insecure on HBO and Netflix has Bubblegum and Dear White People.
It's still amazing to me how big movies and shows focus so much on white people. We use to at least have the token black person. Seems like most shows don't even do that anymore. Probably reflects changes in "high society" and the moneybags that fund tv.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by bryan on Thursday August 17 2017, @06:32PM (1 child)
Or maybe because a large portion of American TV is now produced in Canada, the availability of black actors in a country with only a 2.9% black population [wikipedia.org] is harder to find.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 17 2017, @08:31PM
The film and TV industry has expanded greatly outside of California and New York. The third largest state for film and TV? Georgia [wikipedia.org]. More production money was spent there than in Ontario in 2013, with about 79% as much spent in Georgia as in British Columbia. Aggressive tax incentives/exemptions have fueled the growth.
Georgia is over 30% black [wikipedia.org]. Atlanta, "the Hollywood of the South", is around 51% black [wikipedia.org] (down from 61.4% in 2000).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday August 17 2017, @05:13PM (1 child)
Netflix is available on your "smart" TV, Nintendo, Playstation, XBox, PC (windows, linux, and mac), Phone (android and apple), and other dedicated devices like Roku and Firestick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Netflix-compatible_devices [wikipedia.org]
iTunes is available on Apple products and PC (windows) only. You can technically run it on linux via wine/emulator.
iTunes will never compete with Netflix because it simply isn't available on the majority of devices people have plugged up to their TV.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 17 2017, @05:43PM
They want to push the Apple TV, their answer to Roku, Amazon Fire TV stick, fully loaded Kodi, etc.
What can they offer that Amazon can't offer? Siri? Alexa. 4K? Already done. Original content? Amazon and Netflix are on that.
They could sign deals with ESPN and other valuable content churners but Disney wants their own ESPN walled garden.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]