Apple Continues to Eye Original Video Content, But Direction Unclear: Report

It’s no secret that Apple is looking to move into the television and movie market, but is the company looking to create a subscription-based video streaming service akin to Netflix, or something more traditional akin to HBO?

Image courtesy of Mashable

Bolstering Apple’s video content is no side project. Apple CEO Tim Cook a few weeks ago told investors that the company’s fastest growing segment, software and services, is helped by 150 million paid subscriptions, including Apple Music. As the cable media industry begins “to break down,” Cook said, original programming, like Dr. Dre’s “Vital Signs,” will become more important for Apple.

“We’re trying to make the music service a cultural point of reference, and that’s why we’re making video,” Apple’s Jimmy Iovine has said. “We’re making video for our Apple Music customers and our future customers.”

“To me it’s all one thing,” Iovine continues. “It’s Apple Music, and it happens to have video and audio. … It has nothing to do with what Netflix is doing.”

Most recently, Apple Music, which over the last year has branched out into producing and buying original video programming, has purchased the rights to a Clive Davis documentary from IM Global and Scott Free Productions.

Apple’s first original TV show, a competition series about the hunt for the next big mobile app called Planet of the Apps, is a reality show about apps and app developers, functioning as  a “launchpad and accelerator for exceptional developers.”

“As of right now, there isn’t a structural approach,” a person in the industry familiar with Apple’s early programming efforts said to Mashable. “There’s been a little bit of a moving target as to what exactly their plan is.”

Other unnamed sources went on to say “It’s not like they are coming to the table saying ‘We’d like to go buy six shows this year across three arenas,’” adding “It’s much more opportunistic, which makes it hard to sell to them.”

But Apple’s head of content, Eddy Cue, along with other top executives, according to “multiple sources”, have been meeting with film and TV veterans, such as executives at Paramount Pictures and Sony TV. Apple clearly wants to leverage original content to its Apple Music subscribers, such as now Amazon does with its Prime Video.

So will Apple go on to become the next big video content provider? Or will their efforts fall to the wayside?

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