Amaya Toman The budget of the new Apple streaming service is said to be one billion dollars, but certain circles are beginning to question whether it is really well invested money and whether the content will be interesting to viewers. It seems that Tim Cook stands for properly polished and correct content, but the question is whether that polish will be at the expense of the audience's attractiveness.
When Tim Cook watched his company's drama Vital Signs more than a year ago, he had a bit of a problem with what he saw. The dark, partly biographical story of hip-hopper Dr. Dre, contained, among other things, scenes with cocaine, orgies or weapons. "It's too violent," Cook told Apple Music's Jimmy Iovine. According to him, releasing Vital Signs into the world was out of the question.
After Cook's comments on Vital Signs, Apple had to make it clear that they want high-quality shows full of stars, but they don't want sex, profanity or violence. Other platforms, such as HBO or Amazon, were not afraid of sharper themes, scenes and expressions, similar to Netflix, whose prison comedy drama Orange is the New Black, in which there is no shortage of sex, profanity, drugs and violence, gained enormous popularity after whole world.
According to Preston Beckman, a former director of programming at NBC and Fox, however, by broadcasting violence or lesbian sex, the most that Netflix risks is that a more conservative viewer will cancel their subscription (instead of simply not watching objectionable shows), while Apple may such a conservative viewer decides to punish him by not buying one of his products.
Apple has delayed the broadcast of the show twice, according to one of the executive producers, more delays can be expected. Cook told analysts in July that he could not yet elaborate on his Hollywood plans, but that he had a very good feeling about what Apple could offer in the future. Hollywood is key to Apple's strategy. The Cupertino company is trying to increase the range of its services and income from them. These services include not only the operation of the App Store, mobile payments or Apple Music, but also the planned expansion into the waters of the entertainment industry.
Apple has bought more than a dozen shows in the past, with no shortage of star names. However, due to personnel and content changes, many programs are now delayed. Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, who participated in the popular series Breaking Bad, also sought to have their show approved by Eddy Cue and Tim Cook. M. Night Shyamalan's series about a couple who lost their young child also needed approval. Before giving the nod to the psychological thriller, Apple made a request to eliminate crosses in the house of the main protagonists, because it does not want to show religious or political subjects in its shows. The truth, according to The Wall Street Journal, is that controversial content isn't necessarily a path to success – as evidenced by relatively innocuous series like Stranger Things or The Big Bang Theory. Just because Messrs Cue and Cook don't want to produce shows with controversial content doesn't mean they only watch Teletubbies or Sesame Street themselves, open up. Cue is a Game of Thrones fan, Cook likes Friday Night Lights and Madam Secretary.
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Apple is certainly not afraid to invest in shows it is interested in and offer higher amounts for them than Netflix or even CBS. But she is also not afraid of changes in the purchased shows - for example, she changed the team in the reboot of Spielberg's Amazing Stories. The groundwork for Apple's broadcast strategy was laid roughly three years ago, when there was speculation about Apple's acquisition of Netflix, the Cupertino company considered launching its own cable TV and its management met with Hollywood executives. Apple tried to penetrate the issue as deeply as possible and find out who is successful in this area and why.
The Gizmodo server noted that show business is different from the operation of the App Store or iPhone advertising, where Apple's prudish attitude makes a little more sense after all. Streaming services are hugely successful at the moment, partly because they allow viewers to access exclusive content without having to set up cable TV. On the one hand, Apple has a huge potential to succeed in this field, but its conservative attitude already makes it a competitor that others may not be so afraid of.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, Gizmodo
Normal neo-Marxist censorship. Above all, we must not outrage, shock or offend anyone. The fact that this makes any art lose its meaning, because it has defined boundaries where it must not go, does not occur to them. They are about the rainbow world. But such a world never was and never will be. And I don't even want him like that. Apple is a very unsympathetic company, but they make excellent products. Unfortunately.