It seems pretty clear already that Apple is working on something different with its new Apple TV+ streaming service, focusing entirely on a slate of original content that it will be producing itself. While the company showcased several of its higher-profile shows when it formally announced the service back in March, we’ve been hearing about even more in the pipeline for at least a couple of years now.
However, if you’re expecting to see a ton of original shows, you may be disappointed; it shouldn’t really be a surprise considering Apple’s style, but the company is going to be focusing on quality over quantity. In an interview with London’s The Sunday Times, Apple Senior VP Eddy Cue, said that Apple isn’t looking to “create the most” content, but rather wants to “create the best” content.
Considering the big names that Apple was able to bring to its March event, it’s easy to see how Apple is looking to create “flagship” shows. Cue acknowledged that this is a contrast to the approach used by companies like Netflix, and although he said there’s nothing wrong with how they do things, “it’s not our model.”
Netflix of course cranks out a huge amount of original content, in an effort to be all things to all viewers and ensure that there’s always something available that somebody will want to watch. According to an analysis by Quartz, that amounted to 1,500 hours of original productions, spread across 345 different shows.
Since Apple is late to the game, of course, it can’t really hope to compete on that level anyway, so it makes sense that the company is more concerned with focusing on ways in which it can attract and retain subscribers with a smaller number of high-quality shows with big names behind them. Certainly, A-list personalities like Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, J.J. Abrams, and of course, Oprah Winfrey qualify, and Apple has wasted no time in showing off the star quality behind its productions, in the hopes that this will give its fledgling new service both credibility and cachet.
In the interview, Cue acknowledges Apple’s later start, but also points to Apple’s approach in a lot of other areas, noting that they don’t have to be the first in order to be the best at something. While Apple doesn’t “know a lot about television” it was able to “find the best people for it,” and has managed to build a team of high-profile television and movie executives, although the need to do that may have been a hard-learned lesson for the company, which floundered around for at least a couple of years in trying to figure out how to get into the original content game.
Cue promises that there will a steady stream of new content, most likely beginning with The Morning Show as the first out of the gate, which makes sense as that seems to be the project that’s been in development for the longest, and the cast of Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carrell is likely to be a big draw. Cue adds that the show will be more of a drama and will focus on “real issues occurring in the workplace.” Beyond that, Cue only said that Apple will release new movies and shows every month, but he was less clear about how many new shows. Apple reportedly has at least half a dozen shows ready to go, but whether these will be released right away or part of Apple’s staggered release schedule remains to be seen.
Apple’s “boutique” approach to streaming video is definitely a unique one among the major streaming services, almost all of which either offer a much larger slate of original content, a large library of licensed content from other sources, or more typically a combination of both. By contrast, Apple TV+ is going to be exclusively made up of Apple’s own, original content, with the company clearly hoping that each and every show that it puts out will be a winner. In some ways, this will be a refreshing change compared to services like Netflix which have started to get overwhelming, but it also raises the question as to whether what Apple is offering will be enough to keep viewers coming back for more.