Apple is going to stop spending all that money on shows you don't watch, obviously

Something had to give eventually, right? No one ever really understood the business model for Apple TV+, largely because the streaming service has kept its data a secret while spending a seemingly endless amount of money on shows they hardly even promote. As good as some of that programming turned out to be—and some of it is very, very good!—the Nielsen numbers just don’t back up the cash that Apple has been shelling out. In fact, according to Bloomberg, Apple TV+ attracts “just 0.2% of TV viewing in the US,” and even more damning, it “generates less viewing in one month than Netflix does in one day.” Big, big yikes! Even for a company with unlimited resources, that’s an un-ignorable sign to get back to the drawing board. 

Per this new Bloomberg report, Apple execs have “told some of their top creative partners that they want to change their reputation as the biggest spender in town.” That’ll definitely be a disappointment to those creative partners, for whom the big spending was, obviously, Apple’s biggest appeal. The company is reportedly tightening the belt in all areas, including passing on shows it would’ve greenlit in the past, sending fewer projects straight to series, being more judicious about renewing shows, and cracking down on production budgets for projects currently in the works. Even a big hit like Severance—which somewhat infamously ballooned in spending between the first and upcoming second season—is apparently getting warnings about reducing costs.

This comes after a previous Bloomberg report that Apple has been in the market to license more films from other studios. Though Apple has long offered the option to rent or buy third-party programs (remember when we used to buy episodes on iTunes?), Apple TV+ as a streaming service largely offers original content only. As such, it has a much shallower bench than its competitors like Paramount+ or Disney+ which come with the benefit of each studio’s back catalog bolstering the library. Licensing old content, the strategy Netflix used to launch itself into the stratosphere, is coming back to popularity amongst the studios and streamers as they all seek ways to take a slice of the pie from Netflix. 

Bloomberg reports that Apple insiders have pushed back on some of the dismal Nielsen numbers, and in fact the Nielsen numbers might not be the most important factor for a tech company like Apple. In this case, the streaming service is another way to promote and sell devices, so the ratings aren’t necessarily the defining metric. Regardless, there’s a mandate to reduce spending, and that’s pretty indicative of where the wind is blowing in regards to the streaming wars. Everybody who’s not Netflix is scrambling for the best way forward. At least Apple has lots and lots of tech money to fall back on.