charlesn

VERY interesting article. Thanks, Wesley! Off-topic but wanted to mention: I seem to be running into a lot of ads covering content lately on AppleInsider--not sure what that's about, but it happened again repeatedly as I tried to get through this story. No issue with ads here, in general, you've gotta pay the bills, but the ads covering content, which don't go away, are really annoying. 

Stabitha_Christie said:

Apple has rounded the quality corner when it come to AppleTV+ but now needs to figure out how to turn that into subscriptions. 

Context is everything. Apple TV+ will only be 6 years old as of November, and it launched from literally nothing: no prior experience in the television or movie business, no library of its own content to lean on, etc, and no identity as a "brand" of television. No one knows for sure how many subscribers it has, but estimates seem to coalesce at around 45 million. And you know what? That puts Apple+ about 10% ahead of Peacock, the streaming service of NBC/Universal, which is backed by NBC, a slew of cable channels including the very popular Bravo and, oh yeah, a little studio called Universal.

Honestly--and I say this from the perspective of someone who has been in the television business for decades--what Apple TV+ has accomplished from a standing start in just 5.5 years is nothing short of ASTONISHING. A Best Picture Oscar and a boatload of Emmys in major categories for a company that had never been in the TV or movie business before? That kind of defines "impossible." Sure, Netflix is almost at 300 million subscribers, but they've been at the streaming game since 2007 -- their huge success hardly happened overnight. Apple just needs to keep doing what it's doing (which isn't easy!)--making hit, buzzy shows that get a lot of press and critical praise, and its subscriber numbers will continue to grow.  

I really expected this to get settled quickly once Kiani was out of the picture. "Getting" Apple had become a senseless, great white whale obsession for him, as evidenced by his expenditure of over $100 million in legal fees for which he got nothing of tangible value, only a pyrrhic victory in Apple disabling blood ox readings via software in watches sold in the U.S. starting Jan 2024. But the $100+ million in legal fees was nothing compared to Kiani's $1 billion dollar purchase of a high end audio company comglomerate. If you're wondering why the hell a medical devices company would spend a billion on high end audio, the hedge fund shareholders of Masimo were wondering the same. Supposedly, Kiani did this to get access to retail channels (think Best Buy, etc) through which he hope to sell Masimo watches and other consumer products. What, you never saw the big Masimo display of products at Best Buy? Exactly. And this insane purchase led to the hedgies giving Kiani the boot. Masimo finally unloaded Sound United in May but could only get $350 million for it, a loss of over $650 million in the three years since the purchase, all thanks to Kiani. What a guy!

tiredskills said:

F1 looks terrible.  Expensively terrible, but terrible nonetheless.  The idea that it is art in any meaningful sense strikes me as fanciful, it's Bruckheimer trash.

It doesn't open til June 27th, but awesome that Tim invited you to the Monaco advanced screening for F1 drivers! 

Speaking as someone who has spent a career either giving notes as a network executive or getting notes as the owner of a production company, I will tell you that "F1 looks terrible" is the kind of lazy, meaningless, gibberish note given by someone who has no idea what they're talking about but feels they need to say something critical to justify their job. It's a comment that's not actionable because it could mean a million different things. So... care to step up here and tell us what "looks terrible" specifically means to you? Is the color correction off? Is the picture out of focus? Do you not like the cinematography and, if you don't, how would change it? Etc, etc... let's hear it. 

"The idea that it is art in any meaningful sense strikes me as fanciful." Funny thing, critics felt exactly the same way about Blade Runner, Fight Club, Big Lebowski and others, which were all initially panned and are now considered classics. Oh, and Citizen Kane lost money at the box office, didn't even make back its investment. 

I've worked in television development and production for almost 30 years. I have close friends who have been working in development and production at Apple TV+ since it launched. So I'm going to be very kind here and state simply that this article, for the most part, is incredibly naive and ill-informed about how television, in general, and Apple TV+, in particular, work. But let's start with this sentence: "The show's frequent use of "owners," long and uninterrupted shows with a single camera..." It reads as nonsensical because it is. What it should say is, "The show's frequent use of "oners," long and uninterrupted shots with a single camera..." The term is oners, not owners, because it refers to ONE long and continuous shot. And the reason I start there is because if you can't get an obvious and common industry term right, you're an unreliable narrator for the rest of the story. 

Here's how it works: executives at the entity putting up the money to get a project made--whether it's a big movie studio, a streaming platform, a broadcast network, or a cable channel--get a say in how it gets made through a process of script readings and pre-production meetings before anything is shot, to make sure everyone is on the same page, and then notes are given after the show is shot on cuts as they come in. This isn't "meddling." This input is responsible management of anywhere from millions to hundreds of millions of dollars spent for a project. You don't just write a giant check and hope for the best. Good execs working with a good creative team will not see a need for excessive notes, what they do note will be actionable and there will be an explanation for why the note was given. Bad execs--and they do happen--seem to estimate their self-worth in how many pages of notes they can give, calling for changes in even the most infinitesimal details. There's even an industry term for this--execs who give voluminous notes like these are said to be "frame fucking" the production company. 

So, getting back to Apple: they're entitled to have a say because they're not only paying for the shows to get made, but Apple is pretty much #1 when it comes to the amounts they're willing to pay for a show they want. $200 million estimated for the second season of Severance. Lavish and expensive sci-fi series. The show Pachinko had four other bidders besides Apple, but Apple won as the only company willing to cover the entire production budget estimated at $13 million per episode. Compared to its competitors making shows and movies, Apple TV+ has an excellent reputation in the creative community for the amount of freedom it gives to creators and the trust it places in them. But what about confirmed issues with Jon Stewart and rumored ones with The Studio? Fair question! Well, consider why Apple is in the television business, which almost certainly isn't profitable. It's there to burnish the Apple brand and image and to provide another way to keep the Apple user base engaged with the Apple ecosystem. So considering those goals, why would Apple want to support a project that reflects poorly on the brand in some way or is upsetting to relationships and partnerships it needs for its businesses that actually generate the profits that make Apple TV+ possible? With Jon Stewart, who I think is great, being political and controversial is part of his brand, so I'm not sure why Apple greenlit a show with him in the first place. Someone at Apple didn't think that one through and that it ended badly isn't a surprise. With the rumored "meddling" in The Studio, this is another case where I understand where Apple is coming from, but makes me want to ask, "What were you thinking when gave this show a greenlight?!" It's a hilarious and savage satire of the studios that make television and movies, which is pretty uncomfortable for Apple TV+, since it needs great relationships with studios. I expect The Studio may end up with a slew of Emmy noms and maybe even wins for Apple TV+, in which case case any discomfort with the show will be forgotten!