Inside's Apple steep learning curve with TV+ and Hollywood, as sources say the company already well outspent its projected $1B annual content budget
they are the suckers at this poker table. They should just cut a deal with @RobertIger or buy @Netflix and bring @reedhastings into the fold. https://twitter.com/... @hsteinfeldnews : ‼️ | The Hollywood Reporter confirmed #Dickinson has been renewed for season two. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Two years before TV+ launched, Apple's video operation was described as slow and deliberate — ex-TV executives passing on most scripts and bidding selectively on high-profile shows (the 2017 strategy profile). The Recode piece from that same stretch warned Apple was still fighting with media partners and would only succeed once its originals actually reached the market.
This report is the bill coming due: sources say Apple has already spent well beyond its projected $1B annual content budget, even as it renews early bets like #Dickinson for a second season. The pattern stuck — five years later, Eddy Cue was still pushing TV+ studio chiefs to rein in budgets and shake Apple's reputation as the biggest spender in town.
First-order effects
- Apple's own cost projections have failed within the first year of TV+: the company is paying a steep entry premium for original content, with Hollywood sellers treating it as the deepest pocket at the table.
- Renewals like #Dickinson signal Apple is committing to its slate despite the overrun, locking in ongoing spend on shows with unproven audiences.
Second-order effects
- Every selective bid on high-profile projects raises the clearing price for talent and IP, forcing incumbent buyers like Netflix and the studios to compete against a buyer whose budget discipline is famously loose.
- The overspend hands ammunition to internal skeptics — Cue's later campaign to make studio chiefs exert budget control is a direct institutional response to exactly this dynamic.
Third-order effects
- As later coverage of Apple's TV+ missteps argues, the deeper problem is structural: a platform built without a back-catalog, run to boost device sales rather than subscription economics, keeps needing expensive originals to justify itself.
- If the pattern holds, late-arriving tech entrants into content face a choice between acquiring scale outright — the Iger/Hastings deal-making floated around this story — or permanently subsidizing an overspending service from hardware margins.
The trend: Streaming entrants without back-catalogs pay escalating premiums for originals until they either buy scale through M&A or reposition the service around their core hardware business.