After spending $20 billion, Apple TV+ wants to limit costs

The platform records fewer views in a month than Netflix in a day!

Netflix was not a little proud to announce, in mid-July, that it had gained 8 million new subscribers since the beginning of 2024. This brings their total to 277 million people currently subscribing to this streaming service worldwide.

Since this announcement, Bloomberg published several articles deciphering how Netflix had managed to “winning the platform war”and was particularly interested in the specific case of one of its competitors: Apple TV+.

“The challenge for so many of our competitors is that even though they invest a lot of money in their premium content, they get relatively few views from it on their streaming services.”we can read in the press release from the company with the red N, which does not specifically cite recent examples of Napoleonby Ridley Scott, Argyllby Matthew Vaughn, or even Killers of the Flower Moonby Martin Scorsese, but these titles immediately come to mind when we talk about significant investments on the part of a streaming studio. Because they cost Apple a lot to serve as their “luxury showcase” after being released in theaters, via partnerships with Paramount or Sony.

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Bloomberg He points out that Amazon, Disney +, Max (the Warner Bros. company) and Paramount + are also in this process of spending large sums of money to produce ambitious content, whether series or films, but he insists on the particular case of Apple, “which although appearing to have limited resources, is becoming more aware of their production costs.”

Launched in 2019 (around the same time as Disney+), Apple TV+ has reportedly already cost its creators $20 billion, the source calculates. The achievements of Flowers…, Napoleon And Argyll have a combined budget of over $500 million, and only Scorsese's film has received a truly positive reception: reviews for the other two works are more mixed. Masters of the Airthe spin-off series of Bands of Brotherscost the company more than $250 million alone, and it is the only Apple production to appear in Nielsen's annual ranking. As Killers… is the only film to appear in the recent top streaming films, all services combined.

Even if this kind of ambitious production allows Apple to multiply the nominations and prestigious prizes (let us recall that Coda notably won the Oscar for best film in 2022), Bloomberg specifies that their streaming service, “currently attracts only 0.2% of viewers in the United States”and adds: “Apple TV+ generates fewer views in a month than Netflix does in a day.” Ouch!

The article points out that thanks to its sales of smartphones and other products, Apple has enough regular revenue to allow itself to invest as much in the production of films and series, without this impacting its stock price, for example. But this does not prevent its leaders from reviewing their strategy, so that “their streaming business is more profitable”. The studio should not “no longer invest as much in its prestige shows”And “cancel series that don't work”. It will also toughen its commitments when partnering with other firms, to limit budget overruns – the series Severance notably cost 40 million more than expected following the replacement of Ben Stiller by Adam Scott, then the Covid crisis.

The approach of offering quality content as a priority, rather than multiplying programs as Netflix does, should however be maintained, as should their commitment to sure values ​​of cinema or television, such as Steven Spielberg, the producer of Masters of the Air.

To illustrate the society's trust in its star filmmakers and actors, the article takes as an example The Morning Showrecalling that from the start, Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon earned a million dollars per episode and that this fee has more than doubled over the seasons (there are now 4). “On this series, Apple spends more than 50 million just on the casting“, writes the American newspaper, which emphasizes that this ensures the loyalty of their very popular actresses.

Apple should therefore not stop investing in quality films and series, but will further limit their budgets.

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