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Apple Will Reportedly Screen Original Content for Top Awards Like Oscars and Emmys

Friday March 15, 2019 5:07 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Ahead of its widely expected video service unveil on March 25, Apple is hiring strategists to arrange screenings and other publicity events for Hollywood insiders and others who vote on which movies and TV shows win prestigious awards like Oscars and Emmys, according to Bloomberg's Anousha Sakoui and Mark Gurman.


From the report:
Apple is forming a team of people with awards strategy experience. In January, it hired one such person from Walt Disney Co.'s television group. The iPhone maker is also seeking a high-level candidate to oversee the process, one of the people familiar with the situation said. The company could be in the running for Emmy awards as early as 2020, according to people familiar with the process.
Apple already has dozens of original TV shows and movies lined up for the service, including an unnamed morning show drama starring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carell.

Apple would be following in the footsteps of other streaming video services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video, which have all had original content nominated for awards like Oscars and Emmys in the past few years. As the report notes, winning awards could attract higher-profile directors and actors to Apple.

The report also claims that Apple will charge for some content, while other video will be free for Apple device users, backing up a CNBC report.

Tag: Apple's Hollywood ambitions
[ 37 comments ]


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rmoliv
19 weeks ago
I thought Apple was a tech company...
Rating: 16 Votes
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scottrngr
19 weeks ago
I wish Apple would make TV shows. Said no one ever.
Rating: 13 Votes
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rockarollr
19 weeks ago
So, basically, Tim Cook is pivoting Apple, Inc. to become a content and services company instead of focusing mostly on hardware like Steve Jobs did before him? Gee... can anyone take a guess as to why? (Other than the obvious answer - more money/higher profit margin)

Does “Can’t innovate anymore, my ass” ring a bell?
Rating: 10 Votes
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jetjaguar
19 weeks ago
Apple should have just bought netflix
Rating: 3 Votes
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btimlake
19 weeks ago

Most likely it will all be USA only, given the licensing on such things.

Edit: read this as screening the ceremony themselves. Upon reflection I guess you actually mean that Apple will provide access to digital versions of a screener. Guess it’s more secure than trusting A-Listers with a digital copy, these things always find a way to leak out.


I've wondered about this, and obviously we'll know soon enough, but for original productions, since Apple is producing the content, I imagine they will be able to guide licensing if not outright dictate it. Netflix original content, for example, is available internationally as soon as it is in the US (actual original productions, not the confusingly branded "Netflix Original"s that are actually produced by other outlets).
Rating: 3 Votes
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Suttree
19 weeks ago

Right, but the hardware industry has slowed. Computers aren’t advancing like they used to. Going from PPC or a Pentium 4 to a dual core processor and then the Core i series was a big leap in performance. Even Apple’s own A series chips aren’t making HUGE leaps forward in speed/improvements.

I think hardware has hit a wall. It will keep getting more refined and better, but not in the leaps and bounds we use to see from Apple. Case in point, the iPhone X to iPhone Xs.


Simple: figure it out. I probably could. But Apple cares ONLY about money. So they’re gonna take engineers and have them focus on entertainment??? Makes no sense. They need to make a GREAT Mac with superb performance and specs at a LOW price. 16 GB RAM at least. Powerful GPU, HUGE battery. That’s innovation.
Rating: 2 Votes
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mcfrazieriv
19 weeks ago
Such a big mistake. This entire initiative isn't Apple's specialty and will go down as a massive flop like Ping.

Cook is transforming Apple into a big lazy fish, capable of floating on the top and just eating all the smaller ones around it with very little effort but also too slow to compete with sharks.
Rating: 2 Votes
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Suttree
19 weeks ago

I thought Apple was a tech company...


They stopped being a tech company when they introduced the iPod. And it was dead when they dropped Computer from their name. This was writing on the wall
Rating: 2 Votes
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BGPL
19 weeks ago
Don't spread yourselves too thin there, Apple, in the interest of generating more revenue.
Rating: 2 Votes
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Kaibelf
19 weeks ago

I thought Apple was a tech company...


And I thought Amazon was a book distributor. And I thought Netflix was a DVD library. And I thought Microsoft was a productivity vendor. And I thought Google was a search engine. And......
Rating: 2 Votes

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