Apple’s original content spending spree may finally end

Apple is known to spend billions of dollars on its Hollywood projects, but that could change following production losses across the streaming industry. According to BloombergApple’s senior vice president of services Eddy Cue is pushing studio heads Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht to more closely oversee project budgets in a bid to make its Apple TV Plus streaming business more sustainable.

Apple invests heavily in individual projects compared to major streaming companies like Netflix, having spent more than $500 million on films from directors Martin Scorsese (Flower Moon Assassins), Ridley Scott (Napoleon) and Matthew Vaughn (Argyle). Although his original projects receive a lot of attention during awards seasons, Bloomberg reports that Apple TV Plus is attracting fewer views per month than the Netflix average in a single day.

According to figures released by Nielsen, Apple TV Plus accounts for 0.2% of US TV viewing, which is dwarfed by Netflix’s 8%. As it struggles to break into Netflix’s viewing figures, Apple is now quicker to cancel its original series projects compared to when the Apple TV Plus service first launched in 2019. The company is also licensing more content from competitors to reduce its reliance on original series and delayed production of shows like Foundation in an attempt to stay within budget.

It’s unclear how many people are actually watching Apple’s original programming, as the tech giant doesn’t even share numbers on the people who make its shows. However, Apple TV Plus hasn’t been as quick to lay off employees compared to rivals like Disney and Paramount, and the money bought from selling iPhones and other tech hardware makes it difficult to know how much pressure its studios are under.