Apple testing waters with rollout of original videos
TV-style series, scripted dramas part of efforts to make it a cultural force
Watch out, Netflix. Apple, the richest company in technology, is finally moving into original video content.
Apple said it would introduce its first two television-style video series on Apple Music, its subscription music-streaming service, in the spring.
Other original videos, including scripted dramas, are planned over the next year as Apple tries to build Apple Music into a cultural platform, said Jimmy Iovine, who heads the US$10-a-month service.
“There are a bunch of projects. We’re in it. This is what Apple Music is going to be,” Iovine said in an interview. “Apple Music will have video and other things that I can’t talk about. We’re going to be aggressive about it.”
Apple is still primarily a smartphone company. And despite sitting on US$246 billion in cash and marketable securities, it insists it has no short-term plans to directly challenge streaming-video giants like Netflix and Amazon, which are increasingly commissioning highquality original shows to attract and retain subscribers.
“We’re not out to buy a bunch of shows,” Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice-president for software and services, said during an onstage interview at the Code Media technology conference Monday night.
But Apple does intend to use original video to help distinguish Apple Music, which began in June 2015 and has attracted than 20 million subscribers, from competitors like Spotify. “We’re trying to do things that are unique and cultural,” Cue said.
Much like MTV did in its heyday, that means going beyond music.
Apple aired a trailer for the first show, Carpool Karaoke, at the Grammy Awards on Sunday. The series, a spinoff of James Corden’s running sketch on The Late Late Show, will be available to Apple Music subscribers in April. The second program, Planet of the Apps, is a reality TV series about iPhone app developers competing to build the next great app. In the show, developers will make 60-second pitches, receive mentoring, and then try to persuade a venture capital fund to invest in them. The winners will get prime billing in Apple’s App Store.