Apple Seeks to Reduce Streaming Production Costs After Many Expensive Ventures

Apple is looking to scale down its Apple TV+ production costs as it trails behind its competition despite costly spending. This follows after investing $20 billion USD (around $27.5 billion CAD) and seeing a lukewarm reception to subscriptions.

According to Bloomberg, Apple is reassessing its strategy when it comes to its streaming service. Apple TV+ has become the home of many award-winning pieces of content like The Morning Show and Ted Lasso. What is doesn’t have is the subscriber numbers when compared to its competition. The report claims that studio chiefs Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht are looking to reel back its excessive spending.

Apple has aggressively moved into the streaming space by producing great pieces of original content. By producing some big-name movies to boot, Apple has invested a combined $500 million USD (roughly $687 million CAD) on projects from Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott and Matthew Vaughn. $250 million USD (around $343 million CAD) was spent on Masters of the Air, the World War II miniseries which debuted earlier this year.

Unfortunately for Apple, these big investments haven’t produced the subscription numbers it had hoped. Out of the afortmentioned Hollywood projects, only Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon managed to make a splash on Nielsen’s rankings of the most-popular streaming titles. Masters of the Air is the only new series from Apple to appear on Nielsen’s rankings, despite it finding a small audience.

To help mitigate the excess in spending, Apple management team is looking to spend less up front for shows. This will then force third-party studios and partners to make up for the lost costs in production when going over budget. Apple TV+ will also start licesning programming from competitors in order to bolster its library without having to rely on original programs. Additionally, Apple will begin to identify and cancel shows that may not find an audience quicker.

The company will also become more selective when acquiring new projects. Across the last five years, Apple has been open about acquiring the streaming rights to many new productions. Moving foward, Apple will be taking a strategic approach, which may result in fewer big projects.

That all being said, Apple is still open to big ticket investments. For instance, The Morning Show, which stars Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon garners Apple a ton of critic attention. The attract and retain its cast, Apple cut cheques that equate to over $50 million USD (aprox. $68 million CAD) for its upcoming season. Aniston and Witherspoon alone get more than $2 million USD (around $2.7 million CAD) per episode.

Apple TV+ launched in 2019. Since that time, Apple has struggled to find the audience it desires to compete with the titans of the industry. It’s claimed that Apple’s streaming service accounts for 0.2 percent of TV viewership in the U.S. Netflix, on the other hand, makes up eight percent. It’s beleived that Apple generated less viewing in one month than Netflix does in one day.

Apple TV+ is available for $12.99 per month in Canada.