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October 30, 2017Edited by
James E. Ellis
Businessweek.comLOOK AHEAD ○ Ford releases its October
vehicle sales and revenue
numbers on Nov. 1○ Starbucks announces
fourth-quarter earnings on Nov. 2○ E-commerce giant Alibaba
Group Holding will report
second-quarter earnings on Nov. 2Apple Has Big Plans for
Your Little Screen
The tech giant is making a foray into Hollywood.
Initial reviews have been less than boffo
ILLUSTRATION BY MARTIN GROCHDays before Apple Inc. planned to celebrate the
release of its first TV show last spring at a Hollywood
hotel, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook told his dep-
uties the fun had to wait. Foul language and refer-
ences to vaginal hygiene had to be cut from some
episodes of Carpool Karaoke, a show featuring celeb-
rities such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Jessica Alba, Blake
Shelton, and Chelsea Handler cracking jokes while
driving around Los Angeles.
While the delay of Carpool Karaoke was widely
reported last April, the reasons never were. Edits
were made, additional episodes were shot, and
Apple shifted resources to another show. When
Carpool Karaoke was released in August, it didn’t
make much of a splash. The early stumbles highlight
the challenges ahead as Apple mounts an ambitious
foray into showbiz. The company plans to spend
$1 billion on TV shows over the next year and has
hired a team that’s already bidding for projects
against the biggest media companies in the world.
With $262 billion in cash and securities in its
coffers, Apple has the money to make as much TV
as anyone, but some in Hollywood are beginning to
wonder whether it has a clear strategy. The most
valuable company in the world, Apple is under the
constant glare of regulators, reporters, and competi-
tors. Furthermore, the people who use the hundreds
of millions of Apple devices have pretty mainstream
views about the brand’s appeal. Macs, iPhones, and
iPads are also often in the hands of children—a group
unsuited for much of the edgy programming that’s
fueled the new golden age of television.
The secretive company says little about its plans.
No one in Hollywood knows where the shows will be
available to watch, how much they’ll cost, or even
how Apple will publicize them. But in recent weeks,
a visit to Apple offices in the Culver City suburb of
Los Angeles has become as much a rite of passage
for Hollywood producers, agents, and filmmakers as
dining at Spago. So clues are beginning to emerge,
based on interviews with more than a dozen people
who’ve met with Apple executives or work there.
The company has had many fits and starts in
Hollywood over the past two years, with as many
as four different executives claiming to be respon-
sible for its big move into Tinseltown. To lead the
latest charge, Apple hired Jamie Erlicht and Zack
Van Amburg, former heads of Sony Corp.’s TVstudio. The two men have sterling reputations as key
members of the studio that produced Breaking Bad.
They’ve hired other industry veterans to oversee the
development of new shows. They also plan to hire
at least 70 staffers—including development exec-
utives, publicists, and marketers—to fill out their
division. “They are professionals with deep rela-
tionships with many of the people who make some
of the best shows on TV today,” says Jon Avnet, who
directed 10 episodes of Sony’s TV show Justified.
Erlicht and Van Amburg have agreed to remake
Steven Spielberg’s anthology series Amazing Stories
with NBCUniversal and are in the bidding for another
show, about morning TV show hosts played by Reese
Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston. Apple wants to
have a small slate of shows ready for release in 2019.
“I think for both NBC and Apple, it’s about finding
that sweet spot with content that is creative and
challenging but also allows as many people in the
tent as possible,” says Jennifer Salke, president of
NBC Entertainment.
However, Apple isn’t interested in the types of
shows that become hits on HBO or Netflix, like Game
of Thrones—at least not yet. The company plans to
release the first few projects to everyone with an
Apple device, potentially via its TV app, and top exec-
utives don’t want kids catching a stray nipple. Every
show must be suitable for an Apple Store. Instead
of the nudity, raw language, and violence that have
become staples of many TV shows on cable or stream-
ing services, Apple wants comedies and emotional
dramas with broad appeal, such as the NBC hit This
Is Us, and family shows like Amazing Stories. People
pitching edgier fare, such as an eight-part program
produced by Gravity filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón and
starring Casey Affleck, have been told as much.
Yet like Netflix Inc., Apple is thinking globally.
The company hired Amazon.com Inc. executive
Morgan Wandell to oversee its international divi-
sion and is about to hire Jay Hunt to oversee devel-
opment in Europe.
All this has led many producers to label Apple
as conservative and picky. Some potential partners
say they walk into Apple’s offices expecting to be
blown away by the most successful consumer tech-
nology company in the world only to run up against
the reality of dealing with a giant, cautious corpo-
ration taking its first steps into a new industry.B U S I N E S S
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