In light of the success of Netflix and Amazon.com in providing award winning, original streaming content, Apple has decided to get in on the game. Details are pretty sketchy at this point, but it stands to reason that, if they put their mind to it, Apple could come up with something big.
Streaming services, at least the good ones, have taken a bite out of traditional cable TV models, especially for Millennials and other adults who prefer to binge watch whole seasons of TV shows in a single sitting, don’t want to spend money on expensive cable packages that include a lot of content they’ll never watch, or don’t want their TV- and movie-watching habits to be left to somebody else’s schedule. Or all three. Since Netflix and Amazon have started producing their own original content, much of which is critically acclaimed, that competition has gotten even stronger.
According to unnamed sources in Apple, their goal is to set up development and production divisions to produce long form entertainment for streaming. Plans are in the works to develop a streaming TV service, although that has been pushed back by at least a year, likely in order to release original content at the start of the service.
Producing enough original content to support an entire streaming service might be a tall order, although Apple certainly has the money to put behind such a project. They’d probably be better off creating a streaming service to bring other shows and movies to audiences as well, akin to the models of what would be their chief competitors, Netflix and Amazon. If they could tap into even a tiny portion of what they offer via iTunes, they could bring in a lot of popular content, much of which isn’t available on those other services. And Apple has long excelled at creating useful, easy-to-understand products with a lot of support, so this seems like something they can pull off.
