At the Oscars just past, Apple won the historic Best Picture Oscar for “CODA”. It also made Apple the first streaming operator to win an Oscar for Best Picture.
Previously, as the first big deal at the 2021 online Sundance Film Festival, Apple bought the global rights to CODA for a record-breaking $25 million.
There are voices that winning an Oscar might boost its profile among some potential users, it might lure some of the old members who have lost their way back in, and it would certainly make Apple TV+ more attractive to top talent.
But going back to Apple TV+’s strategy, it’s not surprising for Apple’s streaming media, which has always been on good terms with Hollywood. Apple TV+ became the first streaming platform to win an Emmy in just its second year with its self-made sports comedy Ted Lasso.
In this award-winning blog post, Apple also voluntarily announced that since the debut of Apple TV+ more than two years ago, Apple’s series and movies have received 240 awards and 953 nominations, including Oscars, SAG Awards, BAFTA Film Awards, Critics’ Choice Awards, Primetime Emmys, and more.
For Apple TV+, the award itself is a tangible validation of its strategy of working with Hollywood actors extensively. Behind this verification, the global market share of Apple TV+ is gradually rising. Overseas third-party data shows that as of the end of February 2022, Apple TV+’s global streaming media market share was 5.6%. Although it is still far behind major competitors such as Disney+ and Netflix, it has approached the streaming media platform built by Warner. HBO Max.
Since last year, after shortening the original one-year free trial service to three months, Apple TV+ has significantly increased its investment in the Korean market and big-budget movies since last year. The League (MLB) launches “Friday Night Baseball,” sizing up sports content.
Going forward, Apple hopes to release at least one new content per week on Apple TV+, perhaps this will make Apple’s streaming service in line with other platforms in addition to serving its own ecosystem.
between closed and open,Apple TV+ sticks to original catalog
In November 2019, Apple TV+ officially entered streaming media, at that time original streaming media platforms such as Netflix and Amazon and hulu have occupied a major market share. Compared to other streamers, Apple TV+ launched at $4.99 per month, making it the cheapest streaming platform at the time. But in the early days of its launch, Apple TV+ didn’t have the library of licensed content like other platforms, sticking to the Apple Originals catalog.
Market analysis believes that Apple TV +’s market share growth is slow compared to major competitors such as Netflix, Disney + and HBO Max, mainly related to hardware, and Apple TV is far more expensive than other TV boxes on the market. However, the subscription price of Apple TV + is only $4.99 (about RMB 31) per month, which is about four times cheaper than the same level of Netflix service, and Apple will also give away a year of free service, although the hardware is expensive, But the overall service is very cost-effective, which brings a certain market competitiveness to Apple TV+.
Apple TV+ lost some subscribers after Apple cut its free trial period for new customers in July 2021, according to a new report from JustWatch. Apple TV+’s market share fell below 5% in July-September 2021, but the platform regained subscribers in October 2021, surpassing the 5% mark and approaching HBO MAX levels.
The influx of new subscribers to Apple TV+ during this period may have been due to the highly anticipated new shows and seasons of TV series released in September and October of last year, such as “The Base,” “The Invasion,” and the second season of “The Morning News.”
It is precisely because of the limited amount of original content that companies including Warner Times, helloSunshine, Eros group, and Netflix have all appeared on the list of Apple TV+ acquisitions.
Among them, the most concerned is the acquisition rumors of independent film and television company A24. Apple and A24 discussed potential acquisitions in 2018 when they announced their multiple movie deals, sources said, but other sources said the two companies had only recently had discussions. Last July, independent studio A24 explored a possible sale, with an asking price of between $2.5 billion and $3 billion.
Before the news of the Amazon acquisition settled, MGM was also one of the often-cited potential acquisition targets for Apple. Back in January last year, reports surfaced that Apple was in preliminary talks for a possible acquisition of MGM. But in the end, Apple and Amazon paid $8.45 billion for MGM, about 40 percent more than other potential buyers had estimated it was worth.
Although the acquisition did not take place, Apple itself has changed in the process of developing streaming media. By broadening cooperation with third-party hardware platforms, Apple has expanded the audience for Apple TV+. In 2019, Apple passed a deal to distribute the iTunes TV and Movie Shows app on Samsung TVs. Last October, Apple and Comcast partnered to bring the Apple TV app, including access to the Apple TV+ subscription service, to the cable TV’s Xfinity X1, Flex and XClass TV platforms.
In addition to this, Apple is attracting more subscribers by partnering with streaming device maker Roku. AppleTV+ bought a button on the Roku remote to expand its customer base. At the time, analysts called the move a “shocking” development because it showed the iPhone maker was finally realizing it “can’t just be in Apple’s back garden.”
According to overseas information, as of September 2021, there are about 40 million Apple TV+ subscribers, nearly half of which are paying users.
Content strategy from defense to offense:Shorten the free gift cycle,Over-Coded Content Supply and Globalization
When Apple TV+ first launched in 2019, Apple executives Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht described Apple’s movie strategy as “modest and well-thought-out, no more than 12 movies a year.” Apple will ramp up production of new TV shows and movies in 2022, launching at least one show a week, more than double the pace of this year.
This depends on Apple’s multi-line advancement in organizational structure, content strategy and globalization.
1）Apple TV+Poaching Hollywood to expand original series creation
Back in 2017, Apple hired ex-Sony Zack van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht to launch Apple’s original video content division. The duo, chief content officer and global head of video, led the successful launch of Apple TV+.
Following Zack van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, Matt Cherniss joined Apple in the same year. He was the president and general manager of WGN America and Tribune Studios. He served as the head of creative development in the United States at Apple, and was responsible for programs including the reboot of “Mythic Quest” No. 1. The third and fourth seasons, the second season of “Base”, etc.
In July 2020, Chris Parnell, former co-president of Sony Pictures Television, joined Apple. He served as a senior television program executive and co-produced “For All Mankind,” which is in its second season.
Last year, Apple TV+ successively hired JP Richards from Warner Bros., Zennen Clifton from 3BD Networks, Jessie Henderson from WarnerMedia and Erin May from 20th TV. The positions include marketing strategy director, creative executive officer and other branches of the industry.
2) Cooperate with well-known filmmakers to boost popularity
Although the content launched by Apple TV+ is not superior in quantity, it has been expanding its influence through extensive cooperation with Hollywood celebrities.
For example, The Morning Show, one of four originals when it first launched, starred Jennifer Joanna Aniston and Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon. The series is Aniston’s first TV role since Friends ended in 2004. The work premiered on the platform on November 1, 2019, and was nominated for three Golden Globes a month after its launch.
In addition to the collaboration with Aniston, Apple and Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi series “Amazing Legends” and Oprah’s “The Oprah Conversation” (The Oprah Conversation) have landed in the stream one after another. media platform.
Since 2020, Apple TV+ has successively signed multi-year film and television program development agreements with a number of producers and companies, including Imagine Entertainment, Skydance Animation, Sam Catlin, producer of “Preacher” and “Breaking Bad” Production companies such as Short Drive Entertainment.
Among them, Imagine Entertainment has produced “The Da Vinci Code” and “A Beautiful Mind”, and later produced “Dads” and “Peanuts in Space: Secrets of Apollo 10” for Apple TV+. ) and other works. Skydance Animation produced the animated short “Blush” for Apple TV+ after signing with Apple, and the first season of its sci-fi series “Foundation” aired last September.
3) The subject matter is more diverse, and sports become a new direction
In terms of content types, in addition to documentaries, exclusive big-budget movies are also the original series that Apple TV+ chooses to purchase.andSports is becoming Apple’s latest addition to the direction. In March, Apple and Major League Baseball (MLB) announced that they would launch “Friday Night Baseball,” a two-game weekly game that includes live pre-game and post-game programming, and once the regular season begins, eight Fans in 10 countries will be able to watch it exclusively on Apple TV+.
In November last year, Apple TV+ signed a pre-emptive subscription agreement with Meadowlark Media. The deal with Meadowlark Media’s John Skipper, a former ESPN president, could give Apple TV+ a bigger foothold in sports-related programming.
4) Attack Korea to accelerate globalization
There are signs that Apple TV+ is also accelerating its global expansion. Last November, the six-episode Apple original sci-fi thriller “Dr. Brain,” directed by South Korean filmmaker Kim Ji-woon, made its world premiere on Apple TV+ at the same time that Disney’s streaming service Disney+ landed in the South Korean market.
Dr. Brain’s premiere day coincides with the launch of Apple TV+ in the Korean market.“Dr. Brain” is an adaptation of Hongjacga’s popular Korean webtoon of the same name, starring Lee Sun-kyun, known to audiences around the world for his supporting role in the Oscar-winning film “Parasite.” And writer-director Kim Ji-woon has directed critically acclaimed Korean classics such as Good Guys, Bad Guys, Weird Guys (2008) and Korea’s first Warner Bros-funded film Age of Shadows (2016).
Apple is negotiating with South Korea’s homegrown mobile carrier SK Telecom to distribute Apple TV+ content in South Korea, and by signing an agreement, Apple’s original content will be available through SK Telecom’s services.
Make streaming as easy as channel surfing
In a 2011 biography of Steve Jobs, he mentioned his vision for an Apple-branded TV that would do away with the complicated remotes for cable boxes and DVD players, replacing them with “the simplest you can imagine. user interface”. Before Apple TV+ launched, Apple already had a streaming device (also known as Apple TV) that played iTunes downloads and external services like Hulu and its own dedicated TV app.
“We want to simplify the viewing experience,” said Jamie Erlicht, who joined Apple in 2017. Just as Jobs wanted to get rid of the multiple remotes and tangled wires of a physical TV,Apple wants its TV app to be powered by the TV+ subscription service, making streaming as easy as changing TV channels in the past.
Apple TV+ launched in 2019, at a time when the giants of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video have taken over most of the market, but the streaming platform was launched not as a replacement for the first two, but as a more affordable product that people can Subscribe to Apple TV+ on top of other streaming platforms.
To keep subscribers, Apple offered a year of free service to those who bought a new device at the time. Since July 1 last year, the free one-year subscription service of Apple TV+ has been shortened to three months. Whether users will continue to subscribe to Apple’s streaming media is also a challenge for Apple.
According to an analysis by streaming analyst JustWatch last September, Apple TV+ will maintain a 5% audience share in 2021, just 2% lower than HBO Max, but 10% lower than Disney+. But Apple rarely mentions streaming services and subscriber numbers at the company level.
An anonymous entertainment strategist suggested last July that Apple TV+ subscriptions are low in the U.S. streaming market. And on a global scale, because most of the content is produced in the United States, it cannot attract subscribers elsewhere.
As for the choice of episode genres, Apple is being more aggressive in offering sci-fi epics with broad appeal (Apple TV+ previously wobbled in the sci-fi genre). If successful, they could be the cornerstone of a franchise.
In addition, Apple has shown that TV+ can be the venue for a variety of content combinations, from dramas and thrillers to documentaries, comedies, animated films, children’s content, and even musicals. Although it started with little content, it has fleshed out its catalog in the years since its launch.
In addition to dramas, thrillers, and comedies, Apple TV+ has left room for experimentation since its launch. The short audio-only series Calls is unique, featuring the podcast and documentary series The Line, as well as star-studded unscripted series like The Me You Can’t See and Greatness Code.
“I think Apple TV originals will fundamentally be part of Apple’s larger service package, which is ultimately the source of value.” Matthew Ball, a prominent venture capitalist, believes that while TV+ originals may “generate more revenue,” they are more important Yes. “Their overall ecosystem improves as services are added.”
As Cook noted, software services are important to Apple’s future, and creating an ongoing, user-based ecosystem of products that keep customers in the company’s ecosystem is critical.
This article comes from WeChat public account “East and West Entertainment” (ID: EW-Entertainment)Author: Dongxi Entertainment, 36氪 released with permission.
