A new report by the Financial Times alleges that tech giant Apple has committed a staggering $5 billion dollars more to its original video content budget in an effort to effectively vie with Amazon, Disney, HBO, Netflix, and Hulu.
The company had initially earmarked $1 billion for former Sony Pictures Television officials Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg to invite renowned creators and Hollywood stars to its platform. According to the publication, that number has risen to $6 billion as more shows have moved through production and budgets have swollen.
The FT says that one production has cost Apple hundreds of millions of dollars, while separately Apple is reported to be spending $300 million on just the first two seasons of the show.
Apple’s inclination to instantly match what Netflix was spending yearly on original content only a few years ago shows how intense the streaming wars are set to become in the coming months and years.
Apple’s TV Plus service mounts this autumn, secured by a set of other programming with big names like Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg. The company’s services chief Eddy Cue has said the tech behemoth plans to add new content at a slower pace than its soon-to-be competitors, with a prioritization on quality over quantity.
Nevertheless, Apple will be going up against not just current streaming titans, but also novices like Disney. In 2020, there will also be WarnerMedia’s new HBO Max to deal with, a new streaming service that is likely to mix live TV, including news and sports, and a wider variety of content from across every WarnerMedia property with all of HBO’s current offerings.
In the meantime, Amazon, Disney, and Netflix are spending staggering amounts of money to vie with one another.