There’s a whole heap of money that’s being made in streaming and a whole heap more that’s up for grabs. Netflix, Disney, Amazon, and Apple are the major players and it seems that they’ve each carved out a niche that they’re happy to stick to. That is, until now. Apple has pressed the full speed ahead button and they’re championing their streaming services more aggressively than ever. We’re going to take a look at some of the big hitters that Apple has on its side, as well as some of the smaller changes that will attract customers to their platform over any other.
Apple TV+ originals
Although Apple has been creating its own content for some time now, it really began to take off towards the end of 2021. Speaking at a tech conference in September of last year, Apple boss Tim Cook chose to kick off his speech with a highlight reel of what Apple Originals had in store for viewers. Considering this event was supposed to be a tech showcase, many had expected the new iPhone to be front and center, but instead, it seems Apple’s sites were firmly set on championing their streaming service. In one way, it’s no surprise really. Apple Originals have had some huge successes since launching in 2019 including more than 500 nominations for both films and series. Of these 500 awards, they’ve managed to snag almost 150 wins, which is not a bad conversion rate! Ted Lasso is one of the series that’s responsible for boosting the numbers considerably. This alone snagged twenty Emmy nominations, something that any series at all would dream of. Apple Originals are absolutely in line with the successes of Netflix and if they can keep this up then they might genuinely surpass their main challenger. Apple TV Plus subscribers will have access to all of these originals and it sounds as though there are plans for many more. Sources suggest that Apple has a plan to massively ramp up production of their originals, with an aim of releasing one TV show or movie every single week. This is a huge workload and one that’s going to cost a whole lot of money, but thankfully, it sounds like Apple has that covered.
A big budget
Creating this level of content costs a whole lot of money and although Apple is not the richest of the streaming networks, it has diversity on its side. When one product slows, others pick up and their revenue can keep going at a steady pace. Apple bosses are clearly aware of this and that’s why they’re looking to keep the pace of releases constant throughout the year. In order to achieve this newspapers have reported that Apple has allocated an enormous budget of $500 million to the Apple Originals project. A budget like this is hard to come up against and as such, Apple has also managed to score a few extra pieces of content. Some of them are smaller productions from up-and-coming content-producing countries like Brazil, whilst others are big hitters from the sporting world that nobody could have seen coming.
Apple has snagged some sports
One of the most exciting prospects for Apple TV+ is that they are the current frontrunner to receive the NFL Sunday Ticket shows. Big sporting events are always a huge decider for people looking to choose one streaming service over another and the NFL is massive. If you’re an NFL fan then you’ll know how much time people devote to their love of this sport. Stanford Wong dedicated a large chunk of his life to find out the strategy behind the famous Wong Teasers before releasing the guide to it in his book, Sharp Sports Betting. The NFL isn’t something that people dip in and out of, it’s a way of life for some fans. If Apple does secure the rights to these shows then they could see a huge uptick in subscriptions.
Alongside NFL rights, Apple already has a pretty impressive collection of sports available for viewing on its TV service. Apple announced in March of this year that they’d be adding live Major League Baseball to the sports that they have available to view. This saw a marked growth in free trials and it’s hoped these will turn into subscriptions once they expire. Baseball is huge in America and so too is the NFL. Of course, North America is a huge part of their target market, but making deals for cricket or football would attract an international audience who cannot be ignored.