by Jason Snell
Bloomberg: Apple TV+ is licensing catalog content
When Apple TV+ launched, it did so with a small slate of Apple originals. Unlike pretty much every other streaming service, Apple had eschewed purchasing rights to older movies and TV shows to buttress its content library. That strategy seems to be changing, report Lucas Shaw and Mark Gurman at Bloomberg:
Apple Inc. is acquiring older movies and shows for its TV+ streaming service, aiming to build a back catalog of content that can better stack up against the huge libraries available on Netflix, Hulu and Disney+….
The company’s video-programming executives have taken pitches from Hollywood studios about licensing older content for TV+ and have bought some shows and movies, according to people familiar with the matter…. [Apple] hasn’t yet acquired any huge franchises or blockbusters for its back catalog.
This is definitely a shift, and I’m wondering how much of it is the natural evolution of Apple’s strategy and how much of it might be related to the pipeline of original content drying up due to the global pandemic stopping the production of new live-action series.