Earlier this year it was reported that as part of its efforts to crack Hollywood and rival the likes of Netflix, Apple has set a budget of around $1 billion for producing original television content over the next year.
Months later, a Netflix executive today revealed that he has absolutely no clue what Apple is doing with $1 billion of television programming.
“I don’t have any idea what that Apple product is going to be,” said Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos while speaking at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in Los Angeles. “I don’t think anybody does. I don’t think people making shows for them have any idea”, he continued (via CNET).
Netflix, which is spending about $8 billion on programming this year, makes so much content it’s sometimes criticized because projects can get lost on the service. Sarandos rejects that idea.
“The notion that things get lost on Netflix is silly,” he said. “Things get ‘found’ on Netflix” by the people most likely to watch them because of the company’s recommendation algorithms.”
Apple has so far been able to sign a handful of big-name original TV programming deals, including the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, M. Night Shyamalan, and Steven Spielberg, among others.
Although Apple’s recent efforts have turned it into one of Netflix’s biggest competitors, the company has still to reveal how people will ever watch any of its shows.
