Apple Slapping A Target On Netflix’s Back With Original Content [REPORT]

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It’s been said before that Apple is planning a move into the streaming video market, complete with its own original content, and now the rumor has popped up again. It sounds like the iPhone maker has a plan to fall back on as sales of the iPhone slow, and apparently it wants to be a Hollywood bigwig.

For now anyway, however, it sounds like any streaming videos it produces won’t be for the rumored TV service it has supposedly been planning for some time.

Apple to add video to streaming music

According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple is planning to create its own original movies and TV shows and then make them available to those who subscribe to its streaming music service. The iPhone maker charges $10 per month for the service, but it has failed to gain any traction with it. Spotify remains much larger and is turning out to be a difficult competitor to take down — even for the behemoth Apple.

Apple Music does already have some original content in the form of documentaries focused on musicians, but apparently the content it is planning goes far beyond these documentaries. According to the WSJ, the iPhone maker has been negotiating with veteran producers recently with the goal of purchasing the rights to scripted TV shows.

Apple looks to produce TV shows and movies

Apple has also reportedly met with executives who have experience in marketing content to studios and TV networks. The company is trying to hire these marketing executives to promote the content it products, reports the WSJ, citing people aware of the talks.  The iPhone maker reportedly told the people it met with that it is also considering producing original movies, although the plans to do that are apparently in an earlier stage than the plans for scripted TV shows.

Apple executives reportedly told some of their Hollywood contacts that they aim to start offering their own scripted video content by the end of this year.

What might Apple produce?

It seems pretty clear where the iPhone maker is going with this, as the WSJ reports that Apple is eyeing television shows similar to Netflix’s Stranger Things and HBO’s Westworld. Both shows have met with a great deal of success, as some analysts have even credited Stranger Things with helping Netflix pull in subscribers. Clearly the video streaming company has proven that exceptional original content can be enough to drive subscriber growth for streaming platforms. Of course HBO’s success proved that for TV networks long ago.

Apple isn’t preparing to dive into the deep end of the water yet, however, as the report indicates that it is only looking at “a handful of carefully selected shows, and potentially films.” It sounds like the list is so short that it would involve only a small fraction of the amount Netflix spends on original content every year. Because of this, it will likely be quite some time before Apple becomes a viable competitor for Netflix or even Amazon or HBO or other premium cable TV networks.

According to the Journal, the goal here seems to be about boosting Apple Music by differentiating it from Spotify and elevating it above all other streaming music services. Currently there’s nothing really setting the service apart from the long list of others, so Apple will have to do something if it’s going to make its music service a success.

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