What’s Apple’s Streaming Strategy? Think of It as Content as Catnip

It’s hard to grasp how Apple—albeit, one of America’s most successful companies—expects to compete in the streaming wars when it’s offering a fraction of the viewing choices of competitors like Netflix, Disney, HBO, and Comcast.

Apple TV+ launched November 1 in the U.S. and 100 other countries with only eight shows and one documentary (two more series, Truth Be Told with Octavia Spencer and M. Night Shyamalan’s Servant, are set to premiere in the next few weeks). It plans to make about six movies a year, while its hour-long showcase program, The Morning Show, had just three episodes available at launch. More content is coming, with at least 30 shows in development with high-profile talent attached, but it will still be far less than what competitors are producing: Netflix, by contrast, offered about 2,400 hours of new content in 2018; Disney’s streaming service, Disney+, just launched with at least 127 hours, and promises thousands more; HBO Max will draw on over 10,000 hours of content; and Comcast/NBC’s Peacock will draw on a library of over 15,000 hours of movies and TV shows.

So what is a company known for smart products and clever marketing doing? It turns out that what’s driving the rest of Hollywood isn’t what is driving Apple.

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