Apple embarks on Emmy quest
TELEVISION Tech giant bets big on video streaming
SAN FRANCISCO• Television is one of the few screens that has Apple hasn’t conquered, but that may soon change. The world’s richest company appears ready to aim for its own Emmy-worthy programming along the lines of HBO’s Game of Thrones and Netflix’s Stranger Things.
Apple lu red away two longtime TV executives Jaime Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg from Sony Corp. in June and has given them $ 1 billion to spend on original shows during the next year, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The programming would only be available on a subscription channel, most likely bundled with the Apple Music streaming service. Apple declined to comment.
Hollywood has long shuddered at the thought of Apple training its sights on TV the way it once did on the music business. Almost 15 years ago, Apple’s then- CEO Steve Jobs convinced record labels to let the company sell digital music on its iTunes store for 99 cents a single, a deal the music industry was happy to take in the face of growing music piracy enabled by Napster. Over time, Apple’s dominance in digital music chafed music executives, who saw the company siphoning off a chunk of their profits.
Movies and television have proven much harder for Apple to crack. Hollywood has so far spurned Apple’s efforts to make itself an indispensable digital middleman for video.
In a way, Netflix beat Apple to the punch with its groundbreaking video streaming service. Launched in 2007, that service pioneered “binge watching” of entire TV seasons on any device with an internet connection. That gave new life to existing shows such as Breaking Bad, whose creator credits Netflix with its survival, and spawned the creation of other series tailor made for bingeing. Netflix also helped unleash a crescendo of creativity in Hollywood. Follow- on rivals Amazon and Hulu also boast popular video streaming services, and mainstream broadcasters such as CBS and Walt Disney Co. are also jumping in.
Apple “doesn’t want to be left behind,” said Debby Ruth, senior vice- president of consumer research firm Magid.
This year, the company released its first two original series — Planet of the Apps and Carpool Karaoke — on its Apple Music service, which has 27 million subscribers. But neither show has generated much buzz.
The recent hiring of Erli ch ta nd Van Am burg signal led Apple’ s intent to make bigger splash. The executives have helped orchestrate several TV hits, including AMC’s Breaking Bad, and more recently branched out into video streaming with The Crown, which landed on Netflix last year and is nominated for 13 Emmy Awards.