Apple embarks on Emmy quest with big bet on video streaming

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 9, (Agencies): 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 lured 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 quoting unnamed people.

The programming would only be available on a subscription channel, most likely bundled with the company’s existing Apple Music streaming service. Apple declined to comment.

While $1 billion is a lot of money, it’s a drop in the bucket for Apple and its $262 billion cash hoard. But it’s still enough to vault Apple into the top tier of tech-industry outsiders producing their own slates of television shows.

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, though, 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. The company’s interest in transforming television has been an open secret for years, but 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 ground-breaking 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 — the owner of ABC and ESPN, among other networks — are also jumping in.

All of that has increased the pressure on Apple to step up its game in TV — not least because the increasing popularity of streaming is hurting its business of renting and selling video from iTunes.

Apple “doesn’t want to be left behind”, said Debby Ruth, senior vice president of consumer research firm Magid. “This is a way for them to put a stake in the ground”.

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 or critical acclaim.

The recent hiring of Erlicht and Van Amburg signaled 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 up for 13 Emmy nominations in the Sept 17 ceremony.

Apple also has a not-so-secret weapon: hundreds of millions of iPhones and iPads already in the hands of faithful fans. It could easily transform those into a marketing platform to lure users to its TV service.

Stephen Colbert will cross enemy lines with an appearance on late-night rival Jimmy Kimmel’s ABC show.

Colbert, the host of CBS’ “The Late Show”, will appear on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Sept 14 ahead of hosting the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sept 17. Of course, this is not the first time Kimmel and Colbert have shared airtime. Back in 2015, Kimmel appeared on “The Late Show” shortly after Colbert took over for David Letterman, during which Kimmel poked fun at the notion that he and Colbert were bitter rivals. “It’s a weird thing”, Kimmel said. “I think it was established with Letterman and Leno and people thought it would just continue like the Crusades”.

This is also the latest in a string of late-night hosts appearing on each others’ shows. Trevor Noah recently paid a visit to “Late Night with Seth Meyers”, while Meyers is scheduled to appear on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” this coming week. “Late Late Show” host James Corden has also appeared on “Late Night”. In addition, John Oliver and Samantha Bee, hosts of “Last Week Tonight” and “Full Frontal” respectively, have appeared on fellow “Daily Show” alum Colbert’s show in the past.

Season 7 of “The Walking Dead” — the most-watched show on cable — is now available to stream on Netflix.

The addition of AMC Networks’ hit zombie thriller to Netflix on Friday comes about six weeks ahead of the Oct 22 season 8 premiere on AMC. Netflix now offers the first seven seasons of “The Walking Dead” to subscribers in the US, Canada, France, Germany, Brazil, Japan and several other countries.

Netflix’s deal with AMC for “Walking Dead” underscores that — for all of the streamer’s push toward original programming — it still relies heavily on licensing TV hits to attract and retain subscribers. For AMC, the windowing strategy is aimed at letting fans binge-watch the previous season, so they’ll (ideally) tune in for the next one.

“The Walking Dead” season 7 finale in April was the most-watched cable TV episode of the second quarter, even though the show saw a drop in full-season ratings, drawing more than 16 million viewers in delayed viewing.