Apple Will Spend $4.2 Billion on Original TV Content By 2022

Apple’s original content ambitions are no secret: the company wants to acquire or produce a range of original and compelling television content for streaming on-demand. Earlier this year, Apple went on a hiring tangent — snapping up multiple television and film industry executives in a bid to spearhead its in-house content production projects; and the company even allocated $1 billion to help get those projects off the ground.

Now, in an indication that Apple is getting even more serious about its original video endeavors, a brand-new Variety report claims that the iPhone maker will bump up its video production allowance to as much as $4.23 billion by 2022, as part of a broader effort to expand and re-brand Apple Music.

Ultimately, according to long-time Apple watchdog slash former Piper Jaffray analyst, Gene Munster, Cupertino’s goal is to position Apple Music as a direct competitor to existing video-on-demand subscription services, such as Netflix or Amazon Prime.

Definitely worth pointing out is that while Apple may increase its bankroll by a couple billion dollars over the next few years, the same video streaming companies it’s trying to compete with, according to Munster’s predictions, will also up their spending to as much as $6.84 and $8.34 billion, respectively, over the same timeframe.

Interestingly, Munster’s predictions are coming off the heels of separate report which suggested that Netflix could spend as much as $8 billion to develop original content in 2018, while Amazon is already expected to spend more than $4.5 billion this year, alone, Variety noted.

Still, Munster believes Apple’s goal is to re-brand Apple Music over the next two or three years — expanding and re-focusing the digital audio streaming platform to encompass “much more than just songs.”

“Apple should be able to quickly expand their sub base given they have a running start with just over 30 million Apple Music subs that will have access to the video offering for the same $10 per month,” Munster noted in his blog post, noting that the company’s move to increase spending and expand the Apple Music brand is consistent with its pledge to continue growing its increasingly profitable Services Business.

Of course, while he’s a credible source of Apple knowledge, neither Munster (nor the rest of us) know for sure whether Apple’s original video content will even debut on Apple Music — and we don’t know when it’ll debut… Although we did recently learn about some of the company’s first, upcoming productions,  which will include a reboot of Steven Spielberg’s classic “Amazing Stories” anthology, in addition to a new and original drama series starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon.

Are you looking forward to watching Apple’s original video programming? Let us know in the comments!